How action and context priming influence categorization: A developmental study.

Embodied views of cognition propose that concepts are grounded in sensorimotor experience. Diverse aspects of sensorimotor experience, like action and context information, could play a key role in the formation and processing of manipulable object concepts. Specifically, contextual information could help to link specific actions experienced with different object exemplars. In this study, the effects of action and context priming on superordinate and basic-level categorization of manipulable objects were directly contrasted in 7- and 9-year-olds and in adults. Across the ages, results revealed a differential effect of hand and scene primes on conceptual processing at the superordinate and basic levels; the disadvantage of superordinate over basic-level categorization was reduced in the context priming condition in comparison to the action priming condition. The nature and role of contextual knowledge are discussed from a cognitive and a neurophysiological point of view. Directions for further developmental research on concepts are also considered.

[1]  Solène Kalénine,et al.  The Formation of Living and Non-Living Superordinate Concepts as a Function of Individual Differences , 2006 .

[2]  Alex Martin,et al.  Representation of Manipulable Man-Made Objects in the Dorsal Stream , 2000, NeuroImage.

[3]  Rolf A. Zwaan,et al.  Language Comprehenders Mentally Represent the Shapes of Objects , 2002, Psychological science.

[4]  Agnès Blaye,et al.  Picture naming in 3- to 8-year-old French children: Methodological considerations for name agreement , 2005, Behavior research methods.

[5]  Victor Smetacek,et al.  Making sense , 2004, Nature.

[6]  Anna M. Borghi,et al.  Situation bounded conceptual organization in children: from action to spatial relations , 2003 .

[7]  Katherine D. Kinzler,et al.  Core knowledge. , 2007, Developmental science.

[8]  J. Bullier.  Integrated model of visual processing , 2001, Brain Research Reviews.

[9]  Max Coltheart,et al.  Cognitive Neuropsychology , 2014, Scholarpedia.

[10]  Diane Pecher,et al.  Sensorimotor simulations underlie conceptual representations: Modality-specific effects of prior activation , 2004, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[11]  Scott T. Grafton,et al.  Premotor Cortex Activation during Observation and Naming of Familiar Tools , 1997, NeuroImage.

[12]  J. F. Marques,et al.  The general/specific breakdown of semantic memory and the nature of superordinate knowledge: insights from superordinate and basic-level feature norms. , 2007, Cognitive neuropsychology.

[13]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Conceptual preference for thematic or taxonomic relations: A nonmonotonic age trend from preschool to old age ☆ , 1979 .

[14]  E. Rosch,et al.  Categorization of Natural Objects , 1981 .

[15]  Solène Kalénine,et al.  Object manipulability affects children’s and adults’ conceptual processing , 2008, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[16]  P. Boeck,et al.  The instantiation principle re-evaluated , 2003, Memory.

[17]  Katherine Nelson,et al.  Taxonomic Knowledge: What Kind and When? , 1992 .

[18]  R. Krauss.  Why Do We Gesture When We Speak? , 1998 .

[19]  Linda B. Smith.  Action Alters Shape Categories , 2005, Cogn. Sci..

[20]  G. Murphy,et al.  Thematic relations in adults' concepts. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[21]  F. Keil,et al.  Explanation and understanding , 2015 .

[22]  Maurizio Gentilucci,et al.  Object motor representation and language , 2003, Experimental Brain Research.

[23]  K. McGregor,et al.  Conceptual organization at 6 and 8 years of age: evidence from the semantic priming of object decisions. , 2007, Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR.

[24]  G. Lakoff,et al.  The Brain's concepts: the role of the Sensory-motor system in conceptual knowledge , 2005, Cognitive neuropsychology.

[25]  G. Rizzolatti,et al.  Neural Circuits Underlying Imitation Learning of Hand Actions An Event-Related fMRI Study , 2004, Neuron.

[26]  J. Mazziotta,et al.  Grasping the Intentions of Others with One's Own Mirror Neuron System , 2005, PLoS biology.

[27]  C. Mervis,et al.  Order of acquisition of subordinate-, basic-, and superordinate-level categories. , 1982 .

[28]  Sandro Rubichi,et al.  Are visual stimuli sufficient to evoke motor information? Studies with hand primes , 2007, Neuroscience Letters.

[29]  Rolf A. Zwaan,et al.  PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article THE EFFECT OF IMPLIED ORIENTATION DERIVED FROM VERBAL CONTEXT ON PICTURE RECOGNITION , 2022 .

[30]  Julie C. Sedivy,et al.  Playing on the typewriter, typing on the piano: manipulation knowledge of objects , 2006, Cognition.

[31]  M. Halliday.  New trends in conceptual representation: Challenges to Piaget's theory , 1985 .

[32]  E. Heit,et al.  The instantiation principle in natural categories. , 1996, Memory.

[33]  J. Mandler.  Perceptual and Conceptual Processes in Infancy , 2000 .

[34]  G. Rizzolatti,et al.  Action observation activates premotor and parietal areas in a somatotopic manner: an fMRI study , 2001, The European journal of neuroscience.

[35]  R. Ellis,et al.  Action priming by briefly presented objects. , 2004, Acta psychologica.

[36]  Anna M. Borghi,et al.  Conceptual information on objects’ locations , 2005, Brain and Language.

[37]  S. Gelman.  Psychological essentialism in children , 2004, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[38]  David H. Rakison,et al.  Building object categories in developmental time : 32nd Carnegie Mellon symposium on cognition , 2005 .

[39]  S. P. Nguyen,et al.  Cross-classification and category representation in children's concepts. , 2007, Developmental psychology.

[40]  Pierre Mounoud,et al.  The influence of action perception on object recognition: a developmental study. , 2007, Developmental science.

[41]  R. Ellis,et al.  Micro-affordance: the potentiation of components of action by seen objects. , 2000, British journal of psychology.

[42]  Luciano Fadiga,et al.  Hand action preparation influences the responses to hand pictures , 2002, Neuropsychologia.

[43]  Agnès Blaye,et al.  Thematic and taxonomic relations in preschoolers: The development of flexibility in categorization choices , 2001 .

[44]  Monica Baciu,et al.  Cerebral regions and hemispheric specialization for processing spatial frequencies during natural scene recognition. An event-related fMRI study , 2004, NeuroImage.

[45]  Denis Fize,et al.  Speed of processing in the human visual system , 1996, Nature.

[46]  J. F. Marques,et al.  Specialization and semantic organization: Evidence for multiple semantics linked to sensory modalities , 2006, Memory & cognition.

[47]  A. Borghi.  Grounding Cognition: Object Concepts and Action , 2005 .

[48]  G. Murphy,et al.  Categorizing objects in isolation and in scenes: what a superordinate is good for. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[49]  G. Rizzolatti,et al.  The mirror-neuron system. , 2004, Annual review of neuroscience.

[50]  L. Barsalou,et al.  Whither structured representation? , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[51]  K. Nelson,et al.  Making sense : the acquisition of shared meaning , 1985 .

[52]  G. Murphy,et al.  Causes of taxonomic sorting by adults: A test of the thematic-to-taxonomic shift , 2001, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[53]  Lawrence W. Barsalou,et al.  Abstraction as dynamic interpretation in perceptual symbol systems , 2005 .

[54]  A. Borghi.  Object concepts and action: extracting affordances from objects parts. , 2004, Acta psychologica.

[55]  M. Brett,et al.  Actions Speak Louder Than Functions: The Importance of Manipulability and Action in Tool Representation , 2003, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[56]  A. Borghi,et al.  Taxonomic relations and cognitive economy in conceptual organization , 2001 .

[57]  M. Bar.  Visual objects in context , 2004, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[58]  Giyoo Hatano,et al.  Vitalistic causality in young children's naive biology , 2004, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[59]  Sarah H. Creem-Regehr,et al.  Neural representations of graspable objects: are tools special? , 2005, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[60]  Gregory L Murphy,et al.  An apple is more than just a fruit: cross-classification in children's concepts. , 2003, Child development.

[61]  L. Buxbaum,et al.  Distinctions between manipulation and function knowledge of objects: evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging. , 2005, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[62]  L. Barsalou,et al.  Verifying Different-Modality Properties for Concepts Produces Switching Costs , 2003, Psychological science.

[63]  Emilie L. Lin,et al.  The Effects of Prior Processing Episodes on Basic level Superiority , 1997, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[64]  L. Barsalou.  Grounded cognition. , 2008, Annual review of psychology.

[65]  Daryl B. Greenfield,et al.  Young Children's Preference for Complementary Pairs: Evidence against a Shift to a Taxonomic Preference. , 1986 .

[66]  H. Théoret,et al.  The mirror neuron system: grasping others' actions from birth? , 2007, Developmental science.

[67]  S. Goldin-Meadow,et al.  Gesturing makes learning last , 2008, Cognition.