Time Course of Evoked Action Representations Using Manipulable Upright and Rotated Objects

• Main Author: Kobelsky, Carrie
• Other Authors: Masson, Michael E. J.
• Language: English; en
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: action representation; functional; volumetric; canonical view; rotated objects; upright objects
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1828/5977

Evidence suggests that action representations associated with the functional and volumetric properties of an object are part of its conceptual representation (Bub, Masson, & Cree, 2008; Jax & Buxbaum, 2010). To further examine the dynamic interplay between functional and volumetric action representations during object perception, a series of experiments was carried out in which participants made a reach and grasp response in the context of an object pictured either upright or rotated. When trained to identify a colour cue as a prompt to make a specific hand action, with the cue presented at different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA), participants showed priming effects as early as 300 ms before the presentation of an upright object prime for both functional and volumetric actions. With pictures of hand posture cues, at similar SOAs, participants showed the same pattern of consistent priming effects for both actions types. Surprisingly, a dissociation between the action types occurred when the object primes were rotated, in that only the volumetric and not the functional action representation was evoked. Furthermore, at 0 ms SOA, the primed V-action was associated with the canonical rather than the depicted view of the object. The results clarify the dynamic pattern of F- and V-grasps evoked by visual objects. For upright objects, both F- and V-grasps are strongly evoked over time. Rotated objects show a tendency to evoke only volumetric action representation. The latter result suggests that the V-grasp associated with a rotated object is based on a skeletal form of the object that does not include its functional properties. === Graduate