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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 12, 2026

A Naturalistic Setup for Presenting Real People and Live Actions in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Studies

A Naturalistic Setup for Presenting Real People and Live Actions in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Studies

Published on: August 4, 2023

Organization of affordance processing in perception-action systems.

Lukasz Przybylski¹, Gregory Kroliczak^1,2

¹Action and Cognition Laboratory, Faculty of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland.

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

|July 11, 2026

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Functional grasp planning and tool use pantomimes show left-lateralized brain activity, unlike visual tool processing. These brain asymmetries are linked to handedness and processing levels, offering insights into tool use mechanisms.

Keywords:

cerebral phenotypes functional grasp planning handedness laterality indices non-righthanders phenotypic complexity tool use pantomimes visual tool processing

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Psychology
Neuroimaging

Background:

Tool processing, grasp planning, and pantomimes are often linked to left-hemisphere dominance.
However, the precise neural underpinnings and processing levels involved remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate cerebral asymmetries in visual tool processing (VTP), functional grasp planning (FGP), and tool use pantomimes (TUP).
To examine the relationship between these asymmetries, handedness, and the three-action system (3AS) model across different processing levels.

Main Methods:

fMRI scans were conducted on 62 participants (including non-righthanders).
Participants performed VTP, FGP, and TUP tasks using tools and control objects.
Voxel-wise analyses and laterality indices (LIs) were calculated in regions of interest (ROIs).

Main Results:

VTP showed no consistent left lateralization, unlike FGP and TUP.
Cerebral asymmetries were linked to handedness for VTP and FGP, but not TUP.
Task complexity and processing levels influenced the involvement of different brain streams (3AS) and between-task relationships.

Conclusions:

Findings illuminate affordance encoding and its link to neurocognitive mechanisms of tool function.
Future models should integrate shared mechanisms, processing levels, task complexity, individual variability, and sensorimotor integration in tool use research.