This page is a list of all published and in-press papers that explore (or otherwise discuss) the perception of causality. The list below contains all such papers of which we in the Yale Perception & Cognition Lab are aware, as of the date listed above. The years following Michotte's landmark work on this topic saw a great deal of work in this area, but this activity gradually trailed off. In recent years, though, the number of researchers who have been studying causal perception has skyrocketed, and this trend seems to be continuing: note that since the english translation of Michotte's book was published in 1963, the two years with the greatest numbers of publications on causal perception were 2005 and 2006. This growth has made it increasingly difficult to keep track of the relevant literature -- especially as more studies exploit this type of phenomenon without naming it in titles or abstracts. Thus this page. We initially collected these references for a forthcoming review of this work, but we will now also attempt to keep this list current, and we hope that it may be of some use to others.

(Note, though, that we are intending 'causal perception' to be read in a narrow sense here, referring to the "launching effect" -- and the many related perceptual effects -- pioneered by Albert Michotte. In particular, we are not listing (1) studies of perceived animacy, though such demonstrations often involve a causal component too; (2) studies of causal reasoning that involve visual stimuli, unless such studies actually implicate perceptual processes, per se; or (3) studies that explore other types of reasoning about causal interactions that do not themselves focus primarily on causality -- e.g. in work on the ability to accurately judge mass ratios from physical collisions. We are also not including conference abstracts, manuscripts under review, etc. -- though we are including in-press articles. Finally, we are only listing those paper's of Michotte's that are most relevant. For a bibliography of Michotte's publications, see the paper by Gavin, 1972, cited below; for a list of projects supervised in the early years of Michotte's laboratory, see Michotte, 1947a.)

If you know of any additions or updates that should be listed here, please let us know!

The studies below are listed in chronological order, and by alphabetical order within year. We've also provided links to labs' webpages that contain PDF copies of some of these papers.

• Cohen Lab (U of Texas at Austin)
• Dunbar Lab (Dartmouth)
• Fugelsang Lab (Waterloo)
• Hubbard Lab (TCU)
• Leslie Lab (Rutgers)
• Saxe Lab (MIT)
• Schlottmann Lab (UCL)
• Scholl Lab (Yale)

Michotte, A. (1941). La causalite physique est-elle une donnee phenomenale? [Is physical causality a phenomenal given?]. Tijdschrift voor Philosophie, 3, 290 - 328.

Michotte, A. (1946/1963). La Perception de la Causalite. Louvain: Institut Superieur de Philosophie, 1946. [English translation by T. Miles & E. Miles, The perception of causality, Basic Books, 1963.]

Michotte, A. (1947a). Jubile Albert Michotte. Louvain: Editions de l'Institut Superieur de Philosophie.

Michotte, A. (1947b). Miscellanea Psychologica Albert Michotte. Louvain: Editions de l'Institut Superieur de Philosophie.

Ogden, R. M. (1949). La perception de la causalite, and Miscellanea psychologica Albert Michotte [Book Reviews]. American Journal of Psychology, 127 - 133.

Oldfield, R. C. (1949). La perception de la causalite [Book Review]. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 104 - 105.

Michotte, A. (1950a). The emotions regarded as functional connections. In M. Reymert (Ed.), Feelings and emotions; the Mooseheart Symposium (pp. 114 - 126). New York: McGraw-Hill. [Reprinted in Michotte et al., 1962]

Michotte, A. (1950b). La prefiguration dans les donnees sensorielles de notre conception spontanee du monde physique. Proceedings and Papers of the XIIth International Congress of Psychology (pp. 20 - 22). Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. [Reprinted in Michotte et al., 1962]

Michotte, A. (1952). Albert Michotte van den Berck (Autobiography). In E. G. Boring, H. S. Langfeld, H. Werner, & R. M. Yerkes (Eds.), A history of psychology in autobiography, Vol 4. (pp. 213-236). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press. [Original French text later republished in Psychologica Belgica, 1954.]

Yela, M. (1952). Phenomenal causation at a distance. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 4, 139 - 154.

Olum, V. (1956). Developmental differences in the perception of causality. American Journal of Psychology, 69, 417 - 423.

Gruber, H. E., Fink, C. D., & Damm, D. (1957). Effects of experience on perception of causality. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53, 89 - 93.

Michotte, A. (1957). La causalite phemonenale. Studium Generale, 10, 383 - 390. [Reprinted in Michotte et al., 1962]

Gemelli, A., & Cappellini, A. (1958). The influence of the subject's attitude in perception. Acta Psychologica, 14, 12 - 23.

Powesland, P. F. (1959). The effect of practice upon the perception of causality. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 13, 155 - 168.

Boyle, D. (1960). A contribution to the study of phenomenal causation. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12, 171 - 179.

Natsoulas, T. (1961). Principles of momentum and kinetic energy in the perception of causality. American Journal of Psychology, 74, 394 - 402.

Levelt, W. J. M. (1962). Motion braking and the perception of causality. In Causalite, permanence et realite phenomenales [Phenomenal causality, permanence and reality] (pp. 244 - 258). Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, Studia Psychologica.

Michotte, A. et collaborateurs [and collaborators] (1962). Causalite, permanence et realite phenomenales [Phenomenal causality, permanence and reality]. Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, Studia Psychologica.

Thines, G. (1962). Contribution a la theories de la causalite perceptive. Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, Studia Psychologica.

Michotte, A., & Thines, G. (1963/1991). La causalite perceptive. Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique, 60, 9 - 36. [Translated and reprinted in Thines et al., 1991]

Nuttin, J. (1966). Albert Edouard Michotte van den Berck: 1881 - 1965 [Trans., M. Boring]. American Journal of Psychology, 79, 331 - 341.

Beasley, N. (1968). The extent of individual differences in the perception of causality. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 22, 399 - 407.

Brown, H. V, & Miles, T. R. (1969). Prior stimulation and the perception of causality. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 21, 134 - 136.

Joynson, R. B. (1971). Michotte's experimental method. British Journal of Psychology, 62, 293 - 302.

Boyle, D. G. (1972). Michotte's ideas. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 25, 89 - 91.

Gavin, A. E. (1972). The causal issue in empirical psychology from Hume to the present, with emphasis on the work of Michotte. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 8, 302 - 320.

Ball, W. A. (1973). The perception if causality in the infant. Paper presented at the biannual meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Philadelphia, PA. [N.B.: This is listed here despite the fact that we're not normally including conference abstracts, since it has been reasonably prominent, but was never otherwise published]

Hindmarch, I. (1973). Eye movements and the perception of phenomenal causality. Psychologica Belgica, 13, 17 - 23.

Montpellier, G., & Nuttin, J. (1973). A note on 'Michotte's experimental method' and 'Michotte's ideas'. British Journal of Psychology, 64, 287 - 289.

Weir, S. (1978). The perception of motion: Michotte revisited. Perception, 7, 247 - 260.

Leslie, A. M. (1982). The perception of causality in infants. Perception, 11, 173 - 186.

Leslie, A. M. (1984). Spatiotemporal continuity and the perception of causality in infants. Perception, 13, 287 - 305.

Leslie, A. M. (1986). Getting development off the ground: Modularity and the infant's perception of causality. In P. van Geert, (Ed.), Theory building in development (pp. 405 - 437). Amsterdam: Elsevier, North-Holland

Leslie, A. M., & Keeble, S. (1987). Do six-month-old infants perceive causality? Cognition, 25, 265 - 288.

Leslie, A. M. (1988). The necessity of illusion: Perception and thought in infancy. In L. Weiskrantz (Ed.), Thought without language (pp. 185 - 210). Oxford: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press.

White, P. A. (1988). Causal processing: Origins and development. Psychological Bulletin, 104, 36 - 52.

Gordon, I., Day, R., & Stecher, E. (1990). Perceived causality occurs with stroboscopic movement of one or both stimulus elements. Perception, 19, 17 - 20.

Oakes, L. M., & Cohen, L. B. (1990). Infant perception of a causal event. Cognitive Development, 5, 193 - 207.

Costall, A. (1991). Phenomenal causality. In G. Thines, A. Costall, & G. Butterworth (Eds.), Michotte's experimental phenomenology of perception (pp. 51 - 64). Hove, England: Erlbaum.

Thines, G., Costall, A., & Butterworth, G. (Eds.), (1991). Michotte's experimental phenomenology of perception. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Schlottmann, A., & Shanks, D. (1992). Evidence for a distance between judged and perceived causality. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 44A, 321 - 342.

Cohen, L. B., & Oakes, L. M. (1993). How infants perceive a simple causal event. Developmental Psychology, 29, 421 - 433.

Schlottmann, A., & Anderson, N. H. (1993). An information integration approach to phenomenal causality. Memory & Cognition, 21, 785 - 201.

Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 949 - 971.

Oakes, L. (1994). Development of infants' use of continuity cues in their perception of causality. Developmental Psychology, 30, 869 - 879.

Kummer, H. (1995) Causal knowledge in animals. In D. Sperber et al. (Eds.), Causal cognition: A multidisciplinary debate (pp. 26 - 36). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Oakes, L. M., & Cohen, L. B. (1995). Infant causal perception. In C. Rovee-Collier & L.P. Lipsitt (Eds.), Advances in Infancy Research, vol 9 (pp. 1 - 54). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Spelke, E. S., Phillips, A., & Woodward, A. L. (1995). Infants' knowledge of object motion and human action. In D. Sperber, D. Premack, & A. Premack (Eds.), Causal cognition: A multidisciplinary debate (pp. 44 - 78). Oxford: Clarendon Press

White, P. A. (1995). The understanding of causation and the production of action. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Kruschke, J. K., & Fragassi, M. M. (1996). The perception of causality: Feature binding in interacting objects. In Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 441 - 446). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. [N.B.: This is listed here despite the fact that we're not normally including conference abstracts, since it has been reasonably prominent, but was never otherwise published]

Nakamura, K. (1996). The effect of manual operation of a moving target on young children's perception of causality [Japanese]. Japanese Journal of Developmental Psychology, 7, 119 - 127.

Gyulai, E. (1997). The 'jump' and 'release' effects: Some observations on the perception of causality. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 84, 547 - 554.

White, P. A., & Milne, A. (1997). Phenomenal causality: Impressions of pulling in the visual perception of objects in motion. American Journal of Psychology, 110, 573 - 602.

Chang, C. (1998). The effects of training on causal perception [Chinese]. Chinese Journal of Psychology, 40, 87 - 103.

Cohen, L.B. (1998). An information-processing approach to infant perception and cognition. In F. Simion & G. Butterworth (Eds.), The Development of Sensory, Motor, and Cognitive Capacities in Early Infancy (pp. 277 - 300). East Sussex: Psychology Press

Cohen, L.B., & Amsel, G. (1998). Precursors to infants' perception of causality. Infant Behavior and Development, 21, 713 - 731

Cohen, L. B., Amsel, G., Redford, M. A., & Casasola, M. (1998). The development of infant causal perception. In A. Slater (Ed.), Perceptual development: Visual, auditory, and speech perception in infancy (pp. 167 - 209). East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press.

Choi, I., Nisbett, R. E., & Norenzayan, A. (1999). Causal attribution across cultures: Variation and universality. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 47 -63.

Kiritani, Y. (1999). Perceptual causality in the amodal completion of kinetic structures. Psychological Research, 62, 255 - 260.

Schlottmann, A. (1999). Seeing it happen and knowing how it works: How children understand the relation between perceptual causality and underlying mechanism. Developmental Psychology, 35, 303 - 317

Schlottman, A., & Surian, L. (1999). Do 9-month-olds perceive causation-at-a-distance? Perception, 28, 1105 - 1114.

White, P., & Milne, A. (1999). Impressions of enforced disintegration and bursting in the perception of collision events. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 128, 499 - 516.

Chang, H. (2000). The cue of motion continuity and causal perception [Chinese]. Chinese Journal of Psychology, 42, 101 - 112.

Kerzel, D., Bekkering, H., Wohlschlager, A., & Prinz, W. (2000). Launching the effect: Representations of causal movements are influenced by what they lead to. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53A, 1163 - 1185.

Schlottmann, A. (2000). Is perception of causality modular? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 441 - 442.

Scholl, B. J., & Tremoulet, P. (2000). Perceptual causality and animacy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 299 - 309.

Blakemore, S. J., Fonlupt, P., Pachot-Clouard, M., Darmon, C., Boyer, P., Meltzoff, A. N., Segebarth, C., & Decety, J. (2001). How the brain perceives causality: an event-related fMRI study. Neuroreport, 12, 3741 - 3746.

Erzepa, A., & Desrochers, S. (2001). An empirical reply to Lecuyer: Piaget's contribution to infants' studies on causal perception [French]. Archives de Psychologie, 69, 139 - 144.

Hubbard, T. L., Blessum, J. A., & Ruppel, S. E. (2001). Representational momentum and Michotte's 'launching effect' paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition 27, 294 - 301.

O'Sullivan, C., & Dingliana, J. (2001). Collisions and perception. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 20, 151 - 168.

Schlottmann, A. (2001). Perception versus knowledge of cause and effect in children: When seeing is believing. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10, 111 - 115.

Chang, H. (2002). The effect of auditory information on causal perception of mechanical collision [Chinese]. Chinese Journal of Psychology, 44, 13 - 23.

Hubbard, T. L., & Ruppel, S. E. (2002). A possible role of na•ve impetus in Michotte's "launching effect": Evidence from representational momentum. Visual Cognition, 9, 153 - 176.

Kosugi, D., & Fujita, K. (2002). How do 8-month-old infants recognize causlaity in object motion and that in human action? Japanese Psychological Research, 44, 66 - 78.

Schlottmann, A., Allen, D., Linderoth, C., & Hesket, S. (2002). Perceptual causality in children. Child Development, 73, 1656 - 1677.

Scholl, B. J., & Nakayama, K. (2002). Causal capture: Contextual effects on the perception of collision events. Psychological Science, 13, 493 - 498.

Beebee, H. (2003). Seeing causing. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 103, 257 - 280.

Fonlupt, P. (2003). Perception and judgement of physical causality involve different brain structures. Cognitive Brain Research, 17, 248 - 254.

Gavin, E. A. (2003). Albert Michotte: A psychologist for all sites and seasons. In M. Wertheimer & G. A. Kimble (Eds.), Portraits of pioneers in psychology, Vol. 5 (pp. 159 - 174). Washington, DC: APA.

Guski, R., & Troje, N. (2003). Audiovisual phenomenal causality. Perception & Psychophysics, 65, 789 - 800.

Hubbard, T. L., & Favretto, A. (2003). Naive impetus and Michotte's "Tool Effect:" Evidence from representational momentum. Psychological Research/Psychologische Forshung, 67, 134 - 152.

White, P. A., & Milne, A. (2003). Visual impressions of penetration in the perception of objects in motion. Visual Cognition, 10, 605 - 619.

Choi, H., & Scholl, B. J. (2004). Effects of grouping and attention on the perception of causality. Perception & Psychophysics, 66, 926 - 942.

Hubbard, T. L. (2004). The perception of causality: Insights from Michotte's launching effect, naive impetus theory, and representational momentum. In A. M. Oliveira, M.P. Teixeira, G. F. Borges, & M. J. Ferro (Eds.). Fechner Day 2004. Coimbra, Portugal: The International Society for Psychophysics (pp. 116-121).

Scholl, B. J., & Nakayama, K. (2004). Illusory causal crescents: Misperceived spatial relations due to perceived causality. Perception, 33, 455 - 469.

Fugelsang, J. A., Roser, M. E., Corballis, P. M., Gazzaniga, M.S., & Dunbar, K.N. (2005). Brain mechanisms underlying perceptual causality. Cognitive Brain Research, 24, 41 - 47.

O'Connell, S., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2005). The perception of causality in chimpanzees (Pan spp.). Animal Cognition, 8, 60 - 66.

Roser, M., Fugelsang, J., Dunbar, K., Corballis, P., & Gazzaniga, M. (2005). Dissociating causal perception and inference in the brain. Neuropsychology, 19, 591 - 602.

Saxe, R., Tenenbaum, J., & Carey, S. (2005). Secret agents: Inferences about hidden causes by 10- and 12-month-old infants. Psychological Science, 16, 995 - 1001.

White, P. (2005a). Visual causal impressions in the perception of several moving objects. Visual Cognition, 12, 395 - 404.

White, P. (2005b). Visual impressions of interaction between objects when the causal object does not move. Perception, 34, 491 - 500.

Young, M. E., Rogers, E. T., & Beckmann, J. S. (2005). Causal impressions: Predicting when, not just whether. Memory & Cognition, 33, 320 - 331.

Choi, H., & Scholl, B. J. (2006a). Measuring causal perception: Links to representational momentum? Acta Psychologica, 123, 91 - 111.

Choi, H., & Scholl, B. J. (2006b). Perceiving causality after the fact: Postdiction in the temporal dynamics of causal perception. Perception, 35, 385 - 399.

Parovel, G., & Casco, C. (2006). The psychophysical law of speed estimation in Michotte's causal events. Vision Research, 46, 4134 - 4142.

Saxe, R., & Carey, S. (2006). The perception of causality in infancy. Acta Psychologica, 123, 144 - 165.

Schlottmann, A., Ray, E., Mitchell, A., & Demetriou, N. (2006). Perceived physical and social causality in animated motions: Spontaneous reports and ratings. Acta Psychologica, 123, 112 - 143.

Tschacher, W., & Kupper, Z. (2006). Perception of causality in schizophrenia spectrum disorder. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 32, S106 - S112.

Wagemans, J., van Lier, R., & Scholl, B. J. (2006). Introduction to Michotte's heritage in perception and cognition research. Acta Psychologica, 123, 1 - 19.

White, P. (2006a). The causal asymmetry. Psychological Review, 113, 132 - 147.

White, P. A. (2006b). The role of activity in visual impressions of causality. Acta Psychologica, 123, 166 - 185.

Young, M. E., Beckmann, J. S., & Wasserman, E. A. (2006). The pigeon's perception of Michotte's launching effect. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 86, 223 - 237.

de Sa Teixeira, N. A., & Oliveira, A. M. (2007). An information integration approach to perception of causality through continuous behavioural measures. In S. Mori, T. Miyaoka, & W. Wong (Eds.), Fechner Day 2007: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics (pp. 487 - 492). Tokyo, Japan: The International Society for Psychophysics.

de Sa Teixeira, N. A., & Oliveira, A. M. (2007). The measurement of causal perception through memory displacement: Is all passing a non-causal event? In S. Mori, T. Miyaoka, & W. Wong (Eds.), Fechner Day 2007: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics (pp. 493 - 498). Tokyo, Japan: The International Society for Psychophysics.

Saxe, R., Tzelnic, T., & Carey, S. (2007). Knowing who-dunnit: Infants identify the causal agent in an unseen causal interaction. Developmental Psychology, 43, 149 - 158.

White, P. A. (2007). Impressions of force in visual perception of collision events: A test of the causal asymmetry hypothesis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 647 - 652.

Wolff, P. (2007). Representing causation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136, 82 - 111.

Young, M. E., & Nikonova, O. (2008). Color change as a causal agent: Revisited. American Journal of Psychology, 121, 129 - 157.

Newman, G. E., Choi, H., Wynn, K., & Scholl, B. J. (in press). The origins of causal perception: Evidence from postdictive processing in infancy. Cognitive Psychology.

Wolff, P. (in press). Dynamics and the perception of causal events. In T. Shipley & J. Zacks (Eds.), Understanding events: How humans see, represent, and act on events. Oxford University Press.