Objects rapidly prime the motor system when located near the dominant hand

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link AbstractObjects are said to automatically "afford" various actions depending upon the motor repertoire of the actor. Such affordances play a part in how we prepare to handle or manipulate tools and other objects. Evidence obtained through fMRI, EEG and TMS has proven that this is the case but, as yet, the temporal evolution of affordances has not been fully investigated. The aim here was to further explore the timing of evoked motor activity using visual stimuli tailored to drive the motor system. Therefore, we presented three kinds of stimuli in stereoscopic depth; whole hand grasp objects which afforded a power-grip, pinch-grip objects which afforded a thumb and forefinger precision-grip and an empty desk, affording no action. In order to vary functional motor priming while keeping visual stimulation identical, participants between the participants' posture and the object category they viewed. These results indicate strong affordance-related activity around 300ms after stimulus presentation, particularly when the dominant hand can easily reach an object.

Priming of grasp affordance in an ambiguous object: evidence from ERPs, source localization, and motion tracking

“…Contrary to these lines of evidence, Rowe et al. (2017) failed to find amplitude differences in the posterior N1 when comparing graspable objects to an empty desk.…”

“…In the present study, we showed that an elongated wooden object, ambiguous in size and function, is processed differently depending on the context previously established by conceptual priming. When the pencil context, and thus a context of graspable objects, was primed, the target triggered larger posterior P1 amplitudes, indicative of increased visual attention, as well as a reduced posterior N1 and an enhanced frontal negativity, which has been previously related to object affordance ( Proverbio et al., 2011 ; Rowe et al., 2017 ). Activation of certain brain areas was also stronger.…”

“…The posterior P1 is followed by the posterior N1 component, which shows an amplitude reduction for affording objects ( Righi et al., 2014 ), potentially related to action suppression ( Debruille et al., 2019 ). However, Rowe et al. (2017) failed to replicate an N1 modulation by object affordance when comparing ERPs elicited by graspable objects versus an empty desk.…”

“…To sum up, in the present study we aimed to replicate the frontal negativity associated with affordance processing ( Proverbio et al., 2011 ; Rowe et al., 2017 ) and concurrently measure the posterior P1 as an early index of visual attention allocation while ruling out physical stimulus differences which may have influenced the results of previous studies. To this end, we used prime pictures displaying either pencils (graspable) or trees (non-graspable), followed by the picture of a target stimulus that was always identical (a wooden stick, originally a clave).…”

“…To this end, we used prime pictures displaying either pencils (graspable) or trees (non-graspable), followed by the picture of a target stimulus that was always identical (a wooden stick, originally a clave). We predicted an enhanced frontal negativity in the ERPs starting at a latency of approximately 210 ms after target onset in pencil prime trials ( Proverbio et al., 2011 ; Rowe et al., 2017 ). We also hypothesized increased visual attention allocation to the target in pencil prime trials ( Handy et al., 2003 ; Handy and Tipper, 2007 ; Mangun and Hillyard, 1991 ), reflected in an enhancement of the posterior P1 component evoked by the target.…”