Alignment Effects for Pictured Objects: Do Instructions to "Imagine Picking Up an Object" Prime Actions?

Research suggests that responses to pictures of manipulable objects are facilitated when the location of the response is aligned with the side of the object handle. One interpretation of alignment effects is that object identification results in the automatic activation of actions associated with the object. Alignment effects are, however, not ubiquitously found. Yu, Abrams, and Zacks (2014) found an alignment effect when participants were instructed to imagine picking up the pictured objects while making upright-inverted judgments. Six other experiments, which did not use such instructions, found no alignment effect. One interpretation is that motor-imagery instructions draw attention to the graspable parts of an object, which results in the activation of actions associated with the object. This account predicts that alignment effects are restricted to responses with the left and right hand. An alternative interpretation is that motor-imagery instructions result in the formation of abstract spatial codes for left versus right. This spatial coding account predicts that alignment effects are present for other types of responses that involve a left-right dimension. Consistent with the latter account, we found that alignment effects were found even when participants responded with the index and middle finger of the same hand or with their left and right feet. Currently popular accounts of human cognition suggest that the actions associated with objects are automatically activated when one perceives an object. Our study presents evidence against this view. In fact, it suggests that not even when participants are instructed to think how they would pick up an object is such information readily activated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]