Date of Completion

Spring 4-26-2024

Thesis Advisor(s)

Dr. Eiling Yee

Honors Major

Cognitive Science

Disciplines

Cognitive Neuroscience | Cognitive Psychology

Abstract

Previous research demonstrated that conceptual knowledge of manipulable objects is partially grounded in the motor system. For instance, explicitly retrieving knowledge about how a manipulable object is interacted with (e.g. pinched or clenched?) is easier for right handed people if the object is oriented so that it more easily affords grasping with the right hand (Chrysikou et al., 2017). We tested if motor experience through handedness also influences participants’ abilities to name objects that are commonly grasped with their dominant hand. Participants were asked to name images of graspable objects whose handles were oriented toward either their left or right hand. In a preliminary study, right handers (n=27) were faster to name images of graspable objects oriented toward their dominant hand, whereas the orientation of non-graspable control images (animals) did not influence naming latency. While only two left handers were tested, they showed a (n.s.) complementary pattern (Lautz et al., 2020). With a modified paradigm in our study, results indicated that there was no advantage when tools were oriented towards the dominant hand. This may be due to lack of activation of the motor system in this study (participants’ hands on lap), compared to activation of the motor system in previous studies through naming how one would interact with the object (Chrysikou et al., 2017) and grasping a handle during the naming task (Lautz et al., 2020). These results suggest that the action planning network is not always activated when thinking about tools (e.g. Bub et al., 2021) but may be context-dependent, or dependent on motor area activation.

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