Dissociative effects of viewpoint and semantic priming on action and semantic decisions: Evidence for dual routes to action from vision

Abstract

This article reports evidence that two variables—object viewpoint and semantic priming—differentially affect action and semantic decisions to objects. Changing the viewing angle of an object, so that its graspable parts are oriented away from observers, disrupted action decisions but had little effect on semantic categorization. In contrast, semantic priming influenced semantic categorization and object naming, but not action decisions. Action priming, however, did not affect performance. These selective effects are consistent with the existence of separate semantic and direct (nonsemantic) routes to action from vision.

This work was supported by grants from the British Academy and the ESRC to the first author and grants from the MRC and The Wellcome Trust to the second author.