An Attentional Mechanism for Selecting Appropriate Actions Afforded by Graspable Objects

Abstract

An object may afford a number of different actions. In this article, we show that an attentional mechanism inhibits competing motor programs that could elicit erroneous actions. Participants made a speeded key press to categorize the second of two successively presented door handles that were rotated at varying orientations relative to one another. Their responding hand was compatible or incompatible with the graspable part of the door handles (rightward or leftward facing). Compatible responses were faster than incompatible responses if the two handles shared an identical orientation, but they were slower if the two handles were aligned at slightly dissimilar orientations. Such suppressive surround effects are hallmarks of attentional processing in the visual domain, but they have never been observed behaviorally in the motor domain. This finding delineates a common mechanism involved in two of the most important functions of the brain: processing sensory data and preparing actions based on that information.

Correspondence effects for objects with opposing left and right protrusions.

“…Buckholz et al (1996) appealed to such difference in competition to explain why the location-based Simon effect was larger within than between hands in their study. Assuming, consistent with Tipper et al (2006) and Loach et al (2008), that a grasping affordance is activated only for judgments related to a graspable object property, the affordance account predicts that the pattern of larger within-than between-hand Simon effect should be found only for the upright/inverted object judgments. In contrast, the location coding account predicts that this pattern should also be evident for the color judgments.…”

The Role of Attentional Priority and Saliency in Determining Capacity Limits in Enumeration and Visual Working Memory

“…Unlike previous models, which start by trying to explain the upper limit on capacity (ie. “5 +- 2”), winner-take-all models emphasize the need to be able to converge on a single item for actions such as pointing, grasping or aiming at a target [49]. By this alternative logic, capacity should be viewed as 1 + N items, with N varying based on task and individual differences.…”

Flexible cognitive resources: competitive content maps for attention and memory

“…There is also evidence for ‘clustered’ motor plan maps (d) . In monkeys, precentral motor representations that are coarsely somatotopically organized (e.g., hand movement areas tend to be near finger movement areas) also contain clusters of different motor plans related to the same body area [74] and there is also evidence for inhibitory surrounds in that space [75]. …”