One hand, two objects: Emergence of affordance in contexts

Selecting object pairs for action: Is the active object always first?

“…kitchen, office; cf. Borghi et al 2012). To confirm that the generated object pairings were commonly used object pairs and that the distracters were unlikely to be used with these objects, we conducted a pilot study with a separate group of six adult healthy participants (four females).…”

“…Within the non-matched object pair condition, the objects could belong to the same semantic category (related) or to a different semantic category (unrelated; cf. Borghi et al 2012). Each object was photographed using three grip types: congruent grip for action (functional grip; cf.…”

“…The authors showed that a target that was preceded by a functionally related object and positioned to interact with it was identified more accurately compared to when the target was preceded by an object positioned in a non-interactive way. Borghi et al (2012) showed that congruent grip information also facilitated decisions about relations of object pairs.…”

“…Using pictures as stimuli, it has been shown that action decisions were facilitated when objects were congruently gripped for action, presumably by facilitating motor procedures, as opposed to objects being incongruently gripped (e.g. a toothbrush gripped at the handle as opposed to at the bristle, see Borghi et al 2012;Yoon and Humphreys 2005).…”

Learning to Manipulate and Categorize in Human and Artificial Agents

“…Indeed, the role played by context has become increasingly relevant in recent literature on affordances. While previous studies mainly focused on the automatic activation of affordances, independently from the task (e.g., Tucker & Ellis, 2001), more recent studies have pointed out the flexibility of affordances showing that their activation is modulated by both the task and the physical and social context (e.g., Borghi, Flumini, Natraj, & Wheaton, 2012;Costantini, Ambrosini, Scorolli, & Borghi, 2011;Ellis, Swabey, Bridgeman, May, Tucker, & Hyne, 2011;Tipper, Paul, & Hayes, 2006;Mizelle & Wheaton, 2010;Natraj, Poole, Mizelle, Flumini, Borghi, & Wheaton, 2013;Yoon, Humphreys, & Riddoch, 2010). Along the same line, kinematics studies have revealed that humans vary the way they grasp an object not only depending on its physical features, such as shape and weight, but also on its content, on the context and on the end-goal of the action (e.g., Ansuini, Tognin, Turella, & Castiello, 2007;Ansuini, Giosa, Turella, Altoè, & Castiello, 2008;Crajé et al, 2011;Lederman & Wing, 2003;Sartori, Straulino, & Castiello, 2011).…”