Test of Intuitive Physics (TIP)
Determine your intuitive physics
Everyone carries an intuitive understanding of the physical world: we expect a heavier ball to push a lighter one aside, and a leaning tower to fall. This intuitive physics lets us predict how objects will behave without calculating anything.
The Test of Intuitive Physics presents five short tasks — about colliding balls, a hidden disc, toppling towers, a rolling ball, and lifted canisters — mostly as short videos. Put simply, it measures how accurately you predict and infer the behaviour of everyday objects.
On the following pages, you can determine your intuitive physics by completing five short tasks of 10 trials each. There is no time limit; it takes about 20 minutes and has to be completed in one sitting.
The results will be provided immediately after you have completed the final trial. Please note that the results you receive can only be reliable to the extent that you work attentively and without help.
This test is part of the validation study for the Quantitative Socionics Inventory. In case of any question, please write an e-mail (contact@quantitativesocionics.org) to the research team.
About this test
- Procedure
- Five tasks in a fixed order, each with its own instructions: which of two colliding bowling balls is heavier; whether a disc that was hidden for two seconds reappears where it should; on which side a toppling tower of blocks would fall; whether a ball rolling down a ramp will knock an object off a platform; and which of two lifted canisters is heavier. Most trials are short videos that play once, then you answer. Practice trials or example videos come before four of the tasks.
- Main outcome
- Proportion of the 50 trials answered correctly (chance level: 0.5).
- Also reported
- Correct responses · Accuracy, bowling balls · Accuracy, bouncing discs · Accuracy, toppling towers · Accuracy, ramp knock-off · Accuracy, weightlifting · Median response time (ms)
- Input
- Mouse or touch screen. A larger screen is better for watching the videos; no sound is needed.
- Study
- Your answers are stored anonymously under the same private profile as the Quantitative Socionics Inventory, so that results can be compared across participants.
- Credits
- Stimuli: physics battery of the Fischer lab, Johns Hopkins University (free, unrestricted use). Test: Mitko, Navarro-Cebrián, Cormiea, and Fischer (2023), “A dedicated mental resource for intuitive physics”, iScience 27, 108607.
- License
- free unrestricted use (Fischer lab stimuli)