The unimanual handle-to-hand correspondence effect: evidence for a location coding account

Abstract

The handle-to-hand correspondence effect refers to faster and more accurate responses when the responding hand is aligned with the graspable part of an object tool, compared to when they lay on opposite sides. We performed four behavioral experiments to investigate whether this effect depends on the activation of grasping affordances (affordance activation account) or is to be traced back to a Simon effect, resulting from the spatial coding of stimuli and responses and from their dimensional overlap (location coding account). We manipulated the availability of a response alternative by requiring participants to perform either a unimanual go/no-go task (absence of a response alternative) or a joint go/no-go task (available response alternative) and the type of response required (button-press or grasping response). We found no handle-to-hand correspondence effect in the individual go/no-go task either when a button-press (Experiment 1A) or a grasping (Experiment 2A) response was required, whereas a significant effect emerged in the joint go/no-go task, irrespective of response modality (Experiments1B and 2B). These results do not support the idea that complex motor affordances are activated for meaningful objects, but are rather consistent with the more parsimonious location coding account.

Handle-Hand Compatibility Effects for the Right and Left Hand Using Reach-to-Touch Movements

“…In line with Roest et al ( 2016 ) and Pellicano et al ( 2018 ), as well as with the classic SE literature, our analyses failed to reveal any significant H-H compatibility effect in the participants’ LTs and MTs in both experiments. In contrast, the analyses on the spatial coordinates indicated that the endpoints of reach-to-touch movements are affected by three components that interact with each other: the response hand, the position of the handle in relation to the object body, and the handle orientation.…”

“…Within this debate, some authors have tried to dissociate the spatial and motor accounts by using go/no-go tasks, that is, tasks in which the SE is traditionally absent, with handled objects. In this regard, Roest et al ( 2016 ) reported a reversed H-H compatibility effect (Experiment 2), or no effects (Experiment 3), while Pellicano et al ( 2018 ) reported null compatibility effects in both Experiments 1A and 2A, where they manipulated the type of response (button-press or grasping). Overall, results from these two studies are in line with the spatial coding account, as the activation of motor affordances should be independent of the presence of right-left alternative responses.…”

The prominent role of perceptual salience in object discrimination: overt discrimination of graspable side does not activate grasping affordances

“…A set of seven experiments was performed that clearly showed a spatial correspondence effect between the lateralized button press responses and the location of the spout. Thus, when salience was not a property of the graspable parts of the objects anymore, and the same objects appeared asymmetric because of another spatially distinctive portion, correspondence effects were driven by this second portion, thus clearly supporting the location coding account for object-based spatial correspondence effects (see also Pellicano et al 2018a). This is also the case when an object stimulus is centered on the screen so that its base or most of its body protrudes on the left/right rather than its handle (Pellicano et al 2018b;Proctor et al 2017).…”

Technition: When Tools Come Out of the Closet

“… 3. Recent findings have challenged the “automatic motor-program activation” interpretation of the orientation effect reported in this paradigm in favor of the more parsimonious location coding account (e.g., see Pellicano et al, 2019; for a review, see Osiurak & Badets, 2016). …”