ABSTRACT
As we have seen, the visual system is involved in identifying objects (see Chapter 15) and guiding actions (see Chapter 14). In this chapter, we will explore how the visual system helps us understand events that unfold over time with inanimate objects. It especially addresses how the visual system understands and interprets actions or events that may occur outside of our bodies. An essential distinction to make here is that events are not just actions. Actions imply an actor, but events can also occur without an immediate actor, as when a candle blows out in the wind (Zacks & Tversky, 2003). Surprisingly, the visual system seems to play an important role in our understanding of events like the collision between two objects. In other words, we can actually see if a collision is natural or unnatural. This recognition does not always occur and may depend on the complexity of the physics behind an event, but the fact that the naturalness and physical dynamics of the event may be interpreted by the visual system suggests it performs very high-level processes.
