Abstract
In recent years, a growing body of research has shown that action knowledge is an important part in the representation of object concepts and plays a role in the recognition of manipulable objects (Lin, Guo, Han, & Bi, 2011; Matheson, White, & McMullen, 2014). Action knowledge of manipulable objects regards how an object could be grasped, moved, and used. Further evidence from neuropsychological and brain imaging research has suggested that there are two kinds of action knowledge: function-based and structure-based action knowledge (Bub & Masson, 2013). Structure-based action refers to grasping an object and moving it, and function-based action refers to functionally using an object. Both types of action knowledge could be activated automatically during object processing, and they are independent of each other functionally and neuroanatomically (Bub & Masson, 2013; Jax & Buxbaum, 2010). However, their respective roles in object recognition is still unclear. In the present two experiments, static action pictures (Experiment 1) and dynamic action videos (Experiment 2) of structural versus functional hand gestures were used as primes to examine their respective roles in the recognition of manipulable target objects. Experiment 1 found that structural and functional hand gestures could facilitate the naming of manipulable objects to the same extent. However, Experiment 2 found that the prime effect of functional hand gestures on the naming of manipulable objects was much stronger than the effect of structural hand gestures. The findings indicated that both function-based action and structure-based action knowledge did play important roles in object recognition, but the facilitation effect of dynamic function-based action was more significant. The present research provided further evidence for the role of the dorsal pathway in object recognition that previously considered subserved only by the ventral pathway, and the distinction between the two action systems: “Grasp” and “Use” systems.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015