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<p>We reveal a novel error in people’s thinking about the physical world: the domino error. Across six preregistered experiments (<i>N</i> = 1,655) we showed adults static pictures of objects that had fallen like dominos and asked questions requiring them to reason about which objects had fallen over first or last. Our participants often picked the wrong object. For instance, they often picked the object that fell over last when asked which fell over first. Participants made this error with different items and question wordings, despite believing the objects were arranged like dominos before they fell. Participants were also more likely to make the domino error if they had previously judged the order in which stacked items had been arranged. They rarely made the error, though, when asked about actual dominos, and when shown videos rather than pictures. Together, these findings suggest the domino error is unlikely to arise from a faulty understanding of how the world works or from people inaccurately simulating events. The error may instead reflect the application of a heuristic grounded on the assumption that arrays of objects were constructed from the bottom upward. Some findings suggested that participants applied this heuristic impulsively. In this sense, the domino error may resemble impulsive errors often seen in young children’s physical reasoning.</p>

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The domino error: A novel mistake in simple physical reasoning

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年4月21日

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  • Brandon W. Goulding,
  • Ori Friedman

摘要

We reveal a novel error in people’s thinking about the physical world: the domino error. Across six preregistered experiments (N = 1,655) we showed adults static pictures of objects that had fallen like dominos and asked questions requiring them to reason about which objects had fallen over first or last. Our participants often picked the wrong object. For instance, they often picked the object that fell over last when asked which fell over first. Participants made this error with different items and question wordings, despite believing the objects were arranged like dominos before they fell. Participants were also more likely to make the domino error if they had previously judged the order in which stacked items had been arranged. They rarely made the error, though, when asked about actual dominos, and when shown videos rather than pictures. Together, these findings suggest the domino error is unlikely to arise from a faulty understanding of how the world works or from people inaccurately simulating events. The error may instead reflect the application of a heuristic grounded on the assumption that arrays of objects were constructed from the bottom upward. Some findings suggested that participants applied this heuristic impulsively. In this sense, the domino error may resemble impulsive errors often seen in young children’s physical reasoning.