Object concepts and action: Extracting affordances from objects parts

Two experiments with a part-generation task show that rated salience and production order of parts in artifacts are first predicted by their relevance for canonical actions, but also that they vary, depending on the current situation.In three further experiments participants read sentences describing actions (e.g., ‘The woman shares the orange’) followed by objects’ parts from which it was easy or not to extract affordances (e.g., ‘slice’ vs. ‘pulp’). They had to perform a part verification task or to evaluate whether or not the combination made sense. Parts from which it was easy to derive affordances were processed earlier and the combination was evaluated as the one which made more sense.Overall, results support the view that sensory-motor simulations underlie conceptualization and that concepts are action-based. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]