Pellicano, A. & Binkofski, F.
University Hospital RWTH Aachen, Germany
Reaction times to object-tool stimuli are often faster when the task-irrelevant handle location corresponds with the response location than when it does not. According to a location coding account, object spatial coding depends on the location of its salient portion. This perceived asymmetry facilitates same-sided responses compared to opposite ones. Alternatively, an affordance activation account states that this effect depends on the activation of grasping actions towards the handle with the corresponding hand. The aim of this study was to provide disambiguating evidence whether handle-to-hand correspondence effects are produced by simple location coding or more complex affordance activation patterns. We selected pictures of tools with one salient, but non-graspable, tip and one opposite graspable, but non-salient, tip (non-jutting handle). When the graspable portion was not also visually salient, no correspondence effect was observed between its left/rightward orientation and the left/right responding hand. Conversely, a spatial correspondence effect was produced between the orientation of the salient portion and the responding hand. Results clearly support the location coding account: performance was influenced by the simple spatial coding of a visually salient property of the object. Accurate control of saliency will be crucial for future investigations on affordance effects.