Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 11, 2026

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Estimation of Contact Regions Between Hands and Objects During Human Multi-Digit Grasping
Published on: April 21, 2023
Features of planned hand actions influence identification of graspable objects
Daniel N Bub1, Michael E J Masson, Terry Lin
1Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, P. O. Box 1700 STN CSC, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 3P5, Canada.
Psychological Science
|May 23, 2013
Summary
Object identification is influenced by motor actions. When a planned action (hand and wrist) partially matches an object
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Motor Control
Background:
- Object recognition is a fundamental cognitive process.
- The role of motor planning in object identification is not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how motor action plans influence object identification.
- To determine if specific features of motor plans (hand, wrist orientation) impact recognition speed.
Main Methods:
- Participants held action plans for reaching movements in working memory.
- Action plans specified hand (left/right) and wrist orientation (vertical/horizontal).
- Speeded object identification task with manipulated object-action congruence.
Main Results:
- Object identification was slower when the pictured object matched the action plan on only one dimension (hand or wrist orientation).
- Identification was faster when the object matched on both dimensions or neither.
- This suggests automatic retrieval of action features during object identification.
Conclusions:
- Motor action constituents are integral to object identification.
- Discrepant features between planned actions and object properties lead to identification interference.
- The findings support a tight coupling between action planning and object perception.

