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Measurement of Spatial Stability in Precision Grip
Published on: June 4, 2020
Conflict in object affordance revealed by grip force
Jennifer McBride1, Petroc Sumner, Masud Husain
1Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK. j.mcbride@ion.ucl.ac.uk
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)
|August 10, 2011
Summary
Viewing objects automatically activates motor plans, known as object affordance. This study shows that response conflict from object affordance is reduced by prior experience, similar to other cognitive conflict tasks.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Motor Control
Background:
- Object affordance involves automatic motor plan activation upon viewing objects.
- Understanding response conflict in object affordance is crucial for cognitive models.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate conflict effects between coactivated motor responses in object affordance.
- Examine how prior trial experience influences conflict adaptation in this task.
Main Methods:
- Recorded continuous grip force from both hands during an object affordance task.
- Participants classified object images using hand-based squeezing responses.
- Analyzed response times and error rates for congruent and incongruent trials.
Main Results:
- Faster responses observed when object affordance matched the required response hand (congruent trials).
- Conflict adaptation effects were found, with reduced conflict following preceding conflict trials.
- Increased corrected erroneous responses occurred during conflict, supporting automatic motor plan activation.
Conclusions:
- Object affordance exhibits conflict effects analogous to established stimulus-response mapping tasks.
- Findings suggest object affordance can be integrated into broader frameworks of learned stimulus-response associations.
- Continuous grip force recording offers a sensitive measure for coactivated responses in affordance research.
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