Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Perceiving objects by their function: An EEG study on feature saliency and prehensile affordances.

Dimitrios Kourtis1, Guy Vingerhoets1

  • 1Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.

Biological Psychology
|August 7, 2015
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Structural and functional brain asymmetry in relation to heterogeneous causes of situs inversus totalis.

Brain structure & function·2026
Same author

Hemispheric transfer and dyslexia: testing the deficit hypothesis for word and symmetry recognition using visual half-field tasks.

Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders·2026
Same author

Breastfeeding, bonding, and olfaction: unlocking the potential of mother-infant odour exchange.

EBioMedicine·2025
Same author

Revisiting atypical language lateralization in dyslexia.

Brain communications·2025
Same author

The Missing Link: Bridging Cognitive Fatigue with Working Memory.

Journal of cognitive neuroscience·2025
Same author

The reliability of bilateral cerebral laterality for word generation: Who is left in the middle?

Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)·2025
Same journal

Effects of transcranial electric stimulation on attentional functions in healthy adults: A meta-analysis.

Biological psychology·2026
Same journal

Afterword to the Biological Psychology Special Issue:Contributions of the Vagus to Psychological Functioning and Health:Reflections upon genuine relations between vagus-nerve functioning and psychological processes.

Biological psychology·2026
Same journal

Characterizing Individual Differences in SCR Responsivity: A Hybrid Mixture and Single-Trial Modeling Framework.

Biological psychology·2026
Same journal

Your Heart Beats Next To Mine: Daily Physiological Synchrony Among Black And White ADRD Caregiver-Care Recipient Dyads.

Biological psychology·2026
Same journal

Stimulus arousal level and savoring: An electrocortical investigation.

Biological psychology·2026
Same journal

Neural response to reward and pathological personality dimensions.

Biological psychology·2026
See all related articles

This study on visual object perception found that salient features capture attention first. Motor affordance effects, related to grasping, are often masked by feature saliency unless attention is specifically directed.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Visual Perception
  • Motor Control

Background:

  • Understanding how visual features and object affordances influence attention and motor preparation is crucial.
  • Previous research has explored feature saliency and motor affordances separately.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the interplay between feature saliency and prehensile/motor affordance effects.
  • To determine how these effects are modulated by visual attention.

Main Methods:

  • Electroencephalography (EEG) was used to record brain activity in participants viewing object images.
  • Participants responded to directional arrows overlaid on the objects.
  • Analysis focused on response times and EEG measures like alpha and beta suppression, and P3 component modulation.
Keywords:
Alpha oscillationsBeta oscillationsEEGFeature saliency effectMotor affordancesObject perceptionP3

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • A feature saliency effect was confirmed through response time analysis.
  • Attention was initially directed towards the object's most salient functional end.
  • Pre-movement brain activity indicated preparation for a response compatible with the functional end, suggesting a masked affordance effect.

Conclusions:

  • Feature saliency and motor affordance effects can operate independently.
  • In the absence of explicit attention cues, feature saliency typically dominates over affordance effects.