Sujin Lee¹ (chance0305@gmail.com), Sung-Ho Kim²; ¹Ewha Woman University

Human observers do not perceive object motion solely in terms of its physical trajectory but also in terms of the causal structure that generates it. Here, we investigated how different causal framings modulate the perception of brief pauses interrupting an otherwise continuous motion. On each trial, a single disc translated at a constant speed and turned once, with a 50-ms pause occurring at the turn on half of the trials. The turn occurred within one of three contexts: Bounce-Turn, where the disc contacted a small block and appeared to bounce; Pass-Over Turn, where the disc passed over the block and turned as it cleared the block’s far edge; and Free-Turn, where no block was present and the turn occurred in empty space. Observers judged whether a pause occurred, and pause-detection sensitivity followed a systematic ordering: highest in Bounce-Turn, intermediate in Pass-Over Turn, and lowest in Free-Turn. Two interpretations may account for this pattern. A low-level account attributes the heightened sensitivity in Bounce-Turn to perceived impact force: the collision produces a vivid sense of an abrupt physical jolt, making a brief interruption a salient violation of expected motion continuity. The absence of such impact in the other conditions renders the same interruption less striking. A higher-level account suggests that pause salience depends on how the event modulates perceived animacy: a Newtonian violation in a mechanically constrained system (Bounce-Turn) may induce a larger transient shift toward agent-like interpretation than in Pass-Over Turn, where agentive construals are already more accessible. Although the present data do not decisively favor one account over the other, they call into question the idea that animacy itself drives attentional capture. Rather, the results indicate that salience may originate primarily from perceived violations of Newtonian mechanics grounded in perceived force, independent of whether the motion is interpreted as animate.