Наивная физика: восприятие мира без обучения

Untrained human perception of basic physical phenomena
Naïve physics or folk physics is the untrained human perception of basic physical phenomena. In the field of artificial intelligence the study of naïve physics is a part of the effort to formalize the common knowledge of human beings. Many ideas of folk physics are simplifications, misunderstandings, or misperceptions of well understood phenomena, incapable of giving useful predictions of detailed experiments, or simply are contradicted by more thorough observations. They may sometimes be true, be true in certain limited cases, be true as a good first approximation to a more complex effect, or predict the same effect but misunderstand the underlying mechanism. Naïve physics is characterized by a mostly intuitive understanding humans have about objects in the physical world. Certain notions of the physical world may be innate.

The increasing sophistication of technology makes possible more research on knowledge acquisition. Researchers measure physiological responses such as heart rate and eye movement in order to quantify the reaction to a particular stimulus. Concrete physiological data is helpful when observing infant behavior, because infants cannot use words to explain things (such as their reactions) the way most adults or older children can. Research in naïve physics relies on technology to measure eye gaze and reaction time in particular. Through observation, researchers know that infants get bored looking at the same stimulus after a certain amount of time. But research shows that infants, who do not yet have such expansive knowledge of the world, have the same extended reaction to events that appear physically impossible. Such studies hypothesize that all people are born with an innate ability to understand the physical world. Smith and Cassati (1994) have reviewed the early history of naïve physics, and especially the role of the Italian psychologist Paolo Bozzi.

The basic experimental procedure of a study on naïve physics involves three steps: prediction of the infant's expectation, violation of that expectation, and measurement of the results. As mentioned above, the physically impossible event holds the infant's attention longer, indicating surprise when expectations are violated.

An occlusion event tests the knowledge that an object exists even if it is not immediately visible. Jean Piaget originally called this concept object permanence. When Piaget formed his developmental theory in the 1950s, he claimed that object permanence is learned, not innate. The children's game peek a boo is a classic example of this phenomenon, and one which obscures the true grasp infants have on permanence. To disprove this notion, an experimenter designs an impossible occlusion event. The infant is shown a block and a transparent screen. The infant habituates, then a solid panel is placed in front of the objects to block them from view. When the panel is removed, the block is gone, but the screen remains. The infant is confused because the block has disappeared indicating that they understand that objects maintain location in space and do not simply disappear.

A containment event tests the infant's recognition that an object that is bigger than a container cannot fit completely into that container. Elizabeth Spelke, one of the psychologists who founded the naïve physics movement, identified the continuity principle, which conveys an understanding that objects exist continuously in time and space.

The published findings of Renee Baillargeon brought innate knowledge to the forefront in psychological research. Her research method centered on the visual preference technique. Baillargeon and her followers studied how infants show preference to one stimulus over another. Experimenters judge preference by the length of time an infant will stare at a stimulus before habituating. Researchers believe that preference indicates the infant's ability to discriminate between the two events.