Synthese

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02297-4

S.I.: BET WEEN VISION AND ACTION

Artifacts and affordances

Erica Cosentino1

Received: 13 December 2017 / Accepted: 17 June 2019

© Springer Nature B.V. 2019

Abstract
What are the affordances of artifacts? One view is that the affordances of artifacts,
just as the affordances of natural objects, pertain to possible ways in which they can
be manipulated (e.g., a computer keyboard affords grasping). Another view main-
tains that, given that artifacts are sociocultural objects, their affordances pertain pri-
marily to their culturally-derived function (e.g., a computer keyboard affords typ-
ing). Whereas some have tried to provide a unifying notion of affordance to capture
both aspects, here I argue that they should be kept separate. In this paper, I introduce
a distinction between standard affordances, which concern the function of artifacts,
and ad-hoc affordances, which refer to how artifacts are manipulated. I then argue
for the neuropsychological plausibility of such a distinction, linking it to the disso-
ciation between function knowledge and manipulation knowledge. Finally, I defend
the equal status of these forms of knowledge and, hence, of standard and ad-hoc
affordances, and I show that this has some implications for the debate on the role of
motor processes in the conceptual knowledge of artifacts.

Keywords Affordance · Artifact · Conceptual knowledge · Motor processes

1 Introduction

The notion of affordance is one of the most controversial topics in Gibson’s ecologi-
cal approach to perception (Gibson 1979). He introduces it as follows:
“The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it pro-
vides or furnishes, either for good or ill. The verb to afford is found in the
dictionary, but the noun affordance is not. I have made it up. I mean by it
something that refers both [to] the environment and the animal in a way that
no existing term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the
environment” (p. 127).

* Erica Cosentino
erica.cosentino@rub.de
1
Ruhr University of Bochum, Bochum, Germany

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This straightforward definition has generated very much debate concerning how
affordances should be characterized and what is their ontological status. Affordances
have been defined as either dispositional properties (Reed 1996; Turvey 1992) or
relations (Chemero 2003), and much discussion has been devoted to analyzing
which aspects of the environment and the animal are relevant in order to specify
affordances (Heft 1989; Warren 1984; Shaw et al. 1982). Here I do not delve into
the ontological debate on affordances. In particular, I do emphasize that affordances
arise from the combination of some features of the object/environment and some
features of the animal, and as such, they are neither primarily related to the object/
environment nor the animal. However, I do not intend to imply that they have an
ontological status as relations. I am also not going to address the issue of whether
affordances are or are not independent of perception. Since Norman (1999) intro-
duced the distinction between “real affordances” (which are closely related to physi-
cal constraints) and “perceived affordances” (which may or may not be real), the
relation between affordances and perception has been a key topic of investigation in
several fields (for example, in Human–Computer-Interaction research). Again, this
is an issue that mainly concerns the ontology of affordances, and even though it is a
very relevant one, it falls beyond the scope of this paper. Also, I am going to discuss
differences and similarities between my definition of the notion of “affordance” and
some definitions of the notion of “function,” and I claim that the two notions should
not be conflated (please see the discussion in Sect. 2 and footnote 4). However, I
am not addressing the issue of the ontological difference between affordances and
functions. The present paper does not aim at contributing to the ontological debate
on affordances. It only aims at making some conceptual distinctions, which might
be useful to provide a new epistemological framework to discuss specific problems.
As a case study, in this paper, I show how the distinction between different notions
of affordances might be useful to shed light on the debate on the role of motor pro-
cesses in the conceptual knowledge of artifacts.
In this paper, I will focus on the affordances of objects and, specifically, a sub-
set of objects, which includes things such as hammers, hats, and bottles. They
have some common features that distinguish them from other objects. First, they
are artifacts, that is, human-made objects that are different from natural objects
such as stones. Second, they are manipulable, hence different from other non-
manipulable artifacts, e.g., aircraft and skyscrapers. The analysis of the notion of
affordance with respect to artifacts generates a well-known, yet unresolved, issue
concerning what exactly the affordances of artifacts are. In the literature, at least
two different answers have been provided.
Gibson insists on the continuity between affordances of natural and artificial
objects. He writes:
“It is a mistake to separate the natural from the artificial as if there were two
environments; artifacts have to be manufactured from natural substances.”
(Gibson 1979, p. 130).
Although he discusses a variety of artifacts, such as scissors and knives, his
treatment of the affordances of artifacts does not differ from the treatment of

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the affordances of natural objects. More precisely, affordances are specified in

relation to some bodily feature of the animal and some species-specific, cultural-
independent feature of the environment, e.g., surfaces of support, traversable
apertures, and climbable obstacles. Concerning objects, affordances are speci-
fied in relation to the substances they are made of, their size, texture, distance,
and everything that allows the agent to detect ways in which those objects can
be manipulated, that is, reached, grasped, held, squeezed, thrown, and so on.
Along these lines, Gibson notes that: “A graspable object with a rigid, sharp edge
affords cutting and scraping (a knife, a hand ax, or a chopper).” (ibid., p. 40).
Even in this last example, it is clear that the affordances of artifacts are thought to
be detected with respect to features that do not differentiate between artifacts and
natural objects which also happen to possess the relevant features. This analysis
leads to a noteworthy problem.
As noted by Heft (1989), the notion of affordance does not straightforwardly
extend to artifacts. Gibson defines affordances as related to species-specific or
transcultural features of the object/environment, but part of the information related
to artifacts is not of this nature. Artifacts are inherently sociocultural and, as such,
part of their significance is derived within a given sociocultural context. The Gib-
sonian notion of affordance does not allow us to incorporate the sociocultural com-
ponent and, as a consequence, does not allow us to make sense of the idea that, for
instance, a pen affords writing. If the notion of affordance is restricted to species-
specific and cultural-independent features of the environment, then it leaves out
precisely the type of information that is supposed to be specific of artifacts. This
information is crucial to guide our everyday interactions with those objects, though.
Thus, if the notion of affordance is not apt to incorporate this aspect, it does not
apply to artifacts as such, and it has only limited utility in explaining how we inter-
act with them.
Heft suggests revising the notion of affordance in order to overcome these limi-
tations. His influential account maintains that affordances have to be specified not
only in relation to some bodily feature1 but also in relation to the intentions of the
individual, which guide his goal-directed behavior. This relatively minor definitional
revision has the effect, according to Heft, of broadening the possibilities of what
can count as an affordance, incorporating any environmental feature that is impli-
cated in intentional, goal-directed behavior. Notably, this includes culturally-derived
functions of artifacts. If affordances are restricted only to some transcultural fea-
ture of the object/environment in combination with some physical feature of the
animal (e.g., body size), it will make little sense to say, for example, that a com-
puter keyboard affords typing, because typing goes beyond mere manipulation of the
object. Considering the intentions of the individual, though, the keyboard takes on

1
Heft (1989) defines affordances as dispositional properties of the environment relative to the size of
some relevant body feature. His definition is based on the results of the classical empirical study by War-
ren (1984) on stair climbing affordances, which shows that participants’ judgements about whether or not
they could climb the stairs without using their arms or legs are based on a constant ratio between riser
height and leg length (this ratio, 0.88, is called by Warren “body-scaled” information).

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a culturally-specified affordance relative to the individual’s goal-directed behavior.

The culturally-derived affordances of artifacts are then identified with the artifacts’
intended functions, that is, the possible actions suggested by those objects in a given
sociocultural context. The merit of this analysis is clear: artifacts afford actions that
are related to their culturally-derived function and Heft’s revised notion of affor-
dance extends the explanatory reach of a theory of affordances to capture also this
relevant component.
This discussion reveals that there are two possible meanings for the notion of an
artifact’s affordance, which derive from different accounts of how affordances are
specified. If affordances are specified in relation to the combination between the
animal’s bodily features and species-specific cultural independent features of the
object/environment, then the affordances of artifacts are related, as much as those
of natural objects, to the ways of interacting physically with those objects in terms
of manipulation. On the other hand, if the intentions of the individual are also con-
sidered as part of the picture, then the additional information carried out by arti-
facts becomes relevant and their affordances are mainly concerned with the artifacts’
culturally-specified function.
These two different meanings need not be mutually exclusive and can, in fact, be
complementary (this is what Heft seems to suggest). However, one might wonder
whether a broad unifying notion of affordance does not obfuscate important differ-
ences between the affordances introduced by Heft, which are related to the func-
tion of artifacts, and Gibsonian affordances, which capture mainly features related to
the manipulation of artifacts. I suggest that these two notions bring about different
forms of knowledge, roughly corresponding to declarative and procedural knowl-
edge (see also Houkes 2006 for a discussion on artifact function knowledge).
Declarative knowledge involves knowing that something is the case and can often
be verbalized (or declared).2 Knowledge about the function of an artifact is a form
of declarative knowledge and concerns knowing what that artifact is generally for
(e.g., chairs are for sitting down). Procedural knowledge involves, instead, know-
ing how to do something and is often implicit, that is, cannot be easily verbalized or
declared. Knowledge about how to manipulate an object is procedural and concerns
motor patterns to interact physically with that object. For example, one might know
how to ride a bike but not be able to explain to another person how she does it.3
Given that declarative and procedural knowledge are two different forms of
knowledge conflating them in the same unified notion of affordance can lead to con-
fusion as to what form of knowledge one is addressing when talking about the affor-
dances of artifacts. However, as our previous discussion has demonstrated, there is

2
I do not mean to imply here that declarative knowledge is only of verbal nature. My claim is rather that
humans are often capable of making verbal statements on the basis of this knowledge. This is fully con-
sistent with the idea of non-verbal declarative knowledge; e.g., non-human animals may possess declara-
tive knowledge about their environment and their conspecific and express it non-verbally.
3
Declarative and procedural knowledge need not be of different nature or involve different represen-
tational formats. See Sect. 2.1 for further discussion of similar issues. See also Pezzullo (2011) for an
account of procedural and declarative knowledge in which they are defined, respectively, as on-line sen-
sorimotor anticipation and off-line simulations of potential actions.

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no right and wrong way of using the term affordance and both Gibson’s and Heft’s
notions capture relevant aspects related to how we interact with artifacts. Thus,
in order to accommodate both aspects without obfuscating essential differences
between them, I suggest making a distinction in the domain of affordances.
In the next section, first I introduce this distinction and explain how it relates to
other similar notions, then I argue for its neuropsychological plausibility drawing
upon evidence of a neuropsychological dissociation between function knowledge and
manipulation knowledge. The data I am going to present has also been discussed by
Garcea and Mahon (2012), who use it to support some specific claims about the role of
motor processes in the conceptual knowledge of artifacts. In Sect. 3, I analyze Garcea
and Mahon’s argument. They assume that function knowledge is more relevant than
manipulation knowledge as part of an artifact concept. I challenge this assumption
and, consequently, reject their argument. Finally, in Sect. 4, I show how my theoretical
distinction in the domain of affordances can be fruitfully applied in empirical research
to address the issue of the role of motor processes in artifact conceptual knowledge.

2 The affordances of artifacts

2.1 Standard and ad‑hoc affordances

Building upon the previous discussion, here I introduce a distinction in the domain
of affordances between standard affordances and ad-hoc affordances.
Standard affordances are affordances of a class of objects and correspond to the
function4 of that class of objects, that is, what they are generally for. The function
of an object is culturally-derived with respect to certain goal-directed actions. For
example, mailboxes afford sending correspondence, and phones afford long-dis-
tance communication.5 Standard affordances may be stored in semantic long-term

4
Here and elsewhere in the paper, I discuss the notion of “affordance” drawing some analogies to the
notion of “function.” However, as I should make clear with the following discussion, the analogy is
restricted only to standard affordances and does not extend to ad-hoc affordances. This has two main
implications. First, the relation between standard affordances and functions is not clear-cut. My analysis
is consistent with the interpretation that standard affordances are, indeed, functions, that is, they are onto-
logically the same. Second, given that I emphasize the distinction between standard and ad-hoc affor-
dances, and ad-hoc affordances are not functions, I claim that the notion of “affordance” should not be
conflated with that of “function.”
5
In this respect, the notion of standard affordance is similar to that of canonical affordance introduced
by Costall (2012). However, I prefer the current term for two reasons. First, the term “canonical affor-
dance” has been used with different meanings in the philosophical and psychological literature. For
example, Borghi and Riggio (2009) use this term to refer to something radically different from what is
meant by Costall (2012): in their account, canonical affordances are a subset of temporary affordances
and are related to the typical orientation with which we interact with objects—for example, the typical
orientation with which we read a book. Second, the adjective “canonical” has become popular in the
neuroscientific literature to refer to a class of neurons in the F5 area of the premotor cortex of macaque
monkey, which discharge during motor act execution and during simple visual presentation of objects
(Rizzolatti and Fadiga 1998; Rizzolatti and Umiltà 2013). Thus, the term “canonical affordances” might
be misleading, because it might suggest a special relation to canonical neurons. Exploring the relation
between canonical neurons and different types of affordances is beyond the scope of this paper.

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memory as part of the mental concept under which that class of objects is catego-
rized. They may also be stored as part of the information generally associated to a
specific class of objects, thus including also typical uses of artifacts for purposes that
are not, strictly speaking, their intended functions (e.g., using chairs to reach things
standing on them; see below for a discussion of this point). They are relatively fixed
given a certain sociocultural environment and, as such, apply across several differ-
ent situations.6 An open question is whether or not they involve simulation of motor
processes that are also active during physical manipulation of objects. One possibil-
ity is that standard affordances are represented in a completely amodal way, that is,
decoupled from sensory-motor processes, such that their detection does not require
any simulation of processes also involved in actions and perceptions. An alternative
hypothesis is that knowing what an object is for involves knowing how to interact
with it, that is, standard affordances are represented via a concurrent implicit simu-
lation of the corresponding actual actions.7
Ad hoc affordances are instead affordances that a particular artifact has for an
individual agent in a specific situation. They are not necessarily related to the func-
tion of a certain object and are concerned, instead, with how we motorically interact
with that object, that is, how we can use it and manipulate it. For example, for a
particular agent in a given situation, a phone can take on the ad-hoc affordance of
throwing it at an intruder, and a mailbox can take on the ad-hoc affordance of sit-
ting on it. Ad hoc affordances are context-dependent because they arise in a specific
situation and are not culturally-derived (although a certain sociocultural context can
affect which ad-hoc affordances are selected by the agent8). Being tied to a certain
agent and her specific aims in a particular situation, ad-hoc affordances are not pre-
stored in semantic long-term memory and need to be processed “on the fly.” The
processing of ad-hoc affordances seems to require simulation of motor interactions
with objects in order to establish whether a particular object can afford a certain
action to a particular agent given a specific goal. This simulation is, in most cases,
implicit, but it can become explicit if the situation requires it.
It might be objected that ad-hoc affordances might not require at all the reac-
tivation of motor processes active during actual manipulation of objects, that is,
they might not require any motor simulation. For example, one could argue that in
order to decide that a pen can be used to scratch one’s back, it might be sufficient
to retrieve enough factual information about pens to infer that a pen can be used
to this aim (e.g., pens are generally a certain length and rigid enough, and so on).

6
This phrasing is consistent with the possibility that in a certain given situation, standard affordances
might not be appropriately detected. For example, a mailbox does not afford sending correspondence if it
is pulled away and lying on the ground. Still, we would maintain that mailboxes do generally afford send-
ing correspondence. The concept of a mailbox seems to include what mailboxes are generally for, that is,
what type of function is usually supported by them.
7
The paper is neutral with respect to this issue. In fact, a crucial claim of the paper is that it is not nec-
essary to put this issue at stake to address the question of the role of motor processes in the conceptual
knowledge of artifacts. See Sect. 3 for a detailed argument in support of this claim.
8
For example, at an elegant cocktail party, it might be socially inappropriate for a particular agent to
stand on the buffet table. This particular ad-hoc affordance is, then, very unlikely to be selected by the
agent in that context.

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This factual information can be stored in an amodal format, then retrieving it and
using it in the inferential process would not require any reactivation of motor pro-
cesses related to the actual manipulation of pens. Although this is a possibility, I
would argue that this is an empirical question and should be treated as such, that
is, by making explicit the different empirical predictions held by these two oppo-
site accounts, the simulation view, and the amodal view. Consider, for example, an
implausible scenario which would be novel for most people, such as using a fun-
nel glued to the wall to hang up the coat. The inferential steps connecting the fun-
nel to the coat-hanging affordance are quite many and with no previous experience
of using a funnel to this aim, going through these inferential steps would certainly
require a certain amount of processing time. In particular, the processing time would
be plausibly longer than the processing time required to establish that a funnel can
be used to pour water into a container, given that this information is likely to be
already stored in our long-term memory and readily accessible. Thus, comparing
the processing times for these two different conditions, one might be able to test
whether extrapolating an ad-hoc affordance for an object takes longer than retrieving
its standard affordance, which would support the amodal view. The results of some
relevant behavioral studies, in which processing time is operationalized as reading
time, are at odds with the predictions of the amodal account, showing that no addi-
tional reading time is required for the ad-hoc affordance condition compared to the
standard affordance condition (see Glenberg 1999: he does not use this jargon, but
the comparison of interest involves clearly what I call ad-hoc and standard affor-
dances). These results suggest that ad-hoc affordances are not derived from a chain
of inferential reasoning and, every other condition being equal, motor simulation
seems to be the best predictor of this behavioral data. In Sect. 4, I will briefly men-
tion the results of a recent ERP study that confirm the behavioral data and speak to
this issue.
It should be noted that neither standard nor ad-hoc affordances fully correspond
to the affordances of the environment introduced by Gibson. As noted above (see
Sect. 1), Gibson defines affordances as related to species-specific or transcultural
features of objects (size, texture, what they are made of, distance, and so on). Thus
Gibson’s affordances of the environment do not account for the socioculturally
specified information conveyed by artifacts. With respect to my distinction between
standard and ad-hoc affordances, Gibson’s definition of the “affordances of the envi-
ronment” does not account for standard affordances, in the extent to which standard
affordances are concerned with culturally-derived uses of artifacts. The notion of
the “affordances of the environment” introduced by Gibson may be partially used
to understand what type of affordances are the “ad-hoc affordances”, in the extent
to which they are concerned with transcultural features of artifacts, that is, features
that allow an agent to use artifacts in ways that are independent of any recognized
cultural practice. However, Gibson’s notion of the “affordances of the environ-
ment” cannot fully capture the notion of “ad-hoc affordances,” either. Unlike Gib-
son’s affordances of the environment, ad-hoc affordances are detected also in rela-
tion to the aims of the agent and, as such, they pertain to more complex actions,
which require a combination of simpler actions. For instance, a small ball of paper
affords capturing someone’s attention if thrown to that person’s direction. Whereas

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this ad-hoc affordance for the ball of paper requires the combination of several Gib-
sonian affordances (specified with respect to the material, shape, and size of the
object), it goes beyond Gibsonian affordances as it pertains to a complex action
guided by the agent’s intention of capturing someone’s attention.
For similar reasons, ad-hoc affordances are different from microaffordances as
introduced by Ellis and Tucker (2000). Microaffordances are even more precise than
Gibsonian affordances as they are specified with respect to some components of
actions, which are independent of the goals of the agent and related, for instance,
to the size or orientation of an object (see Ellis and Tucker 2000; Tucker and Ellis
1998, 2001). Microaffordances do not capture complex actions, while ad-hoc affor-
dances do, given that they are sensitive to the goals of the agent in a certain situation.
That is, ad-hoc affordances can specify new and unusual functions for an artifact.
These novel action possibilities, though, are not limitless, they are constrained by
limited motor patterns associated with how an object can be actually manipulated.
The distinction between standard and ad-hoc affordance seems similar to the dis-
tinction between proper and system function, as introduced by Preston (1998; see
also Heersmink 2016; Houkes and Vermaas 2010). The notion of proper function
traces back to Millikan (1984) and concerns “…something specific that [artifacts as
well as biological traits] are supposed to do, even though they may never perform
this function, or may be temporarily co-opted for some other use” (Preston 1998, p.
215). For example, the proper function of chairs is to support seated humans, and
this is why they are made and purchased. Sometimes chairs can also be used to stand
on them to get things off high shelves, but this is not the reason why they are there in
the first place. Preston’s pluralist theory of function acknowledges that artifacts (and
biological traits) also have system functions, which “depend on the current capaci-
ties and dispositions of things […]. System functions are also typically established
for individual things or uses of things because functionality, in this case, depends
not on the history of the thing itself, but on the containing system” (ib., p. 239).
Unlike proper functions, system functions do not concern what artifacts are designed
for, but rather the additional performances that they may end up being used for, like
using chairs to stand on them and change light bulbs. According to Preston, “the
main difference between system function and proper function is … that the latter is
normative, whereas the former is not” (ib., p. 224). The difference in normative sta-
tus also accounts for another important difference between the two notions. The nor-
mativity that defines proper function allows us to draw a clear line between function
and accident (Wright 1974), that is, between performances which fulfill a function
(e.g., the heart circulating blood) and performances which are a mere by-product of
the ‘real’ function (e.g., the heart making a characteristic noise). The notion of “sys-
tem function,” on the other hand, has no strong commitment to a distinction between
‘real’ and accidental functions, thus drawing the function-accident line much more
liberally (Cummins 1975).
The distinction between proper and system function resembles the distinction
between standard and ad-hoc affordance. The notion of “standard affordances”
could be understood similarly to that of “proper functions” of artifacts (what they
are for), whereas the notion of “ad-hoc affordances” looks similar to that of “sys-
tem functions” (what they may end up being used for). Even though there are

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indeed some similarities, there are also some crucial differences between mine
and Preston’s distinction. In order to see that, it may be useful to mention a fur-
ther distinction made by Preston between two types of system functions, namely,
standardized ongoing exaptations and idiosyncratic ongoing exaptations. Stand-
ardized ongoing exaptations are repeated uses of artifacts by a community of
users for purposes that are not their proper functions. For example, screwdrivers
are regularly used to open paint cans, chairs to reach things, and so on. These
additional functions are the result of widespread cultural practice; indeed, arti-
facts may end up being used at least as often for their system-functional use than
for their proper-functional use.
On the other hand, idiosyncratic ongoing exaptations are concerned with indi-
viduals’ creative uses of artifacts on specific occasions. For example, a funnel glued
to the wall by its large end can be used as a coat rack. There is no corresponding and
recognized cultural practice in this type of use.
Given my definition of standard and ad-hoc affordances (see above), the notion
of “standard affordances” does not only include that of artifacts’ “proper functions,”
but also that of “standardized ongoing exaptations.” Standard affordances concern
all types of culturally-derived uses of artifacts, which may be stored in seman-
tic long-term memory as part of the information related to artifacts. Ad hoc affor-
dances, on the other hand, are not pre-stored, but determined “on the fly,” as the
result of individuals’ creative uses. The notion of “ad-hoc affordances” covers Pres-
ton’s description of idiosyncratic ongoing exaptations, but also a third type of sys-
tem function, introduced by Heersmink (2016), namely, idiosyncratic exaptations.
Idiosyncratic exaptations are not ongoing, that is, they are uses of artifacts that are
not even well-established (or fairly well-established) for individuals (e.g., Preston’s
example of using a shoelace to tie up a tomato plant). For example, someone may
use a screwdriver as a weapon to defend oneself from an intruder. Such uses are
improvised one-offs, which may occur only once or twice in a lifetime.
Thus, despite the prima facie similarity, the distinction between proper and sys-
tem function does not correspond to the distinction between standard and ad-hoc
affordance, even though there is some overlap. More precisely, proper and system
functions are distinguished mainly according to their normative status, as we saw
above. Normativity, though, does not clear-cut the distinction between standard and
ad-hoc affordance, whereas cultural practice and the existence of pre-stored seman-
tic information do.
So far, I motivated the current distinction mainly by theoretical arguments.
However, I would now like to suggest that this distinction is also consistent with
the neuropsychological literature. More precisely, function knowledge and manipu-
lation knowledge are doubly dissociable. Given that my distinction between stand-
ard and ad-hoc affordances is primarily based on the distinction between function
and manipulation, I suggest that the neuropsychological dissociation between them
provides a further reason to distinguish between these two types of affordances and
reveals that such a distinction, independently motivated by theoretical reasons, is
also plausible from the neuropsychological point of view. Additionally, this corre-
spondence provides a significant advantage, that is, connecting the philosophical
debate on affordances to the experimental research. Before delving into the empirical

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implications of my distinction, I will now briefly review some relevant experimental

literature in support of the dissociation between function and manipulation.

2.2 Knowledge of function and knowledge of manipulation: is there

a dissociation?

It is quite well-established that artifacts activate specific cognitive processes and

brain regions which are distinct from those involved in representing living things
such as animals (see for reviews Capitani et al. 2003; Devlin et al. 2002; Thomp-
son-Schill 2003). According to some influential accounts of conceptual knowledge,
these differences are explained by the assumption that visual features and other sen-
sory properties are more relevant to represent living things, whereas information on
objects’ function is more important for representations of human-made objects. This
is because exemplars of an artifact—e.g., chairs—may have different color, shape,
and size, yet still the same function (Warrington and McCarthy 1987; Warrington
and Shallice 1984). Given our definition of standard and ad-hoc affordances, this is
consistent with the idea that standard affordances play a particularly important role
in artifacts’ concepts.
This view is based on neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies which have
suggested that different object categories activate different brain regions and can be
selectively compromised (Gerlach et al. 1999; Moore and Price 1999; see also Dev-
lin et al. 2002; Kellenbach et al. 2003, for reviews). However, most studies have
failed to distinguish within the domain of artifacts between those that are manipula-
ble (e.g., hammer) and those that are non-manipulable (e.g., traffic light). As a con-
sequence, they cannot help to answer the question of whether information about the
function (what the object is for) and manipulation (how to use it) constitute the same
or dissociable types of knowledge.
One way to investigate this issue in an experimental setting is to ask subjects to
make similarity judgments about objects that may be similar with respect to their
function or their manner of manipulation. For example, a feather duster and a vac-
uum cleaner are manipulated in different ways, but they share a common function.
Thus, they share standard affordances, but their ad-hoc affordances are very dif-
ferent. On the other hand, the way in which scissors and pliers are manipulated is
similar despite having different functions so that they will share many ad-hoc affor-
dances but not the same standard affordances. Using some versions of this para-
digm, it has been shown that these two types of knowledge may doubly dissociate in
neuropsychological disorders.
Apraxic patients, who are impaired in grasping and using objects, also have prob-
lems in judging the similarity in the manner of manipulation, while their knowledge
about the function is relatively spared (Buxbaum and Saffran 2002; Buxbaum et al.
2000). The opposite pattern has been reported in patients with temporal lobe lesions
associated to semantic dementia or herpes encephalitis, who have deficits in function
knowledge despite a relatively intact knowledge about manipulation (Negri et al.
2007; Magnie et al. 1999; Buxbaum et al. 1997; Sirigu et al. 1991). Furthermore,

13
Synthese

the dissociation between manipulation knowledge and function knowledge has also
been reported in healthy adults (Garcea and Mahon 2012).
The dissociation between function and manipulation strengthens the idea of mak-
ing a distinction in the domain of affordances between those related to the artifact
function and those related to the artifact manipulation. This dissociation, however,
has been argued to carry some specific implications which concern, in particular,
the debate on the role of motor processes in the conceptual knowledge of artifacts.
In the next section, I review an argument put forward by Garcea and Mahon (2012)
who, on the basis of the dissociation between function knowledge and manipula-
tion knowledge, claim that conceptual knowledge of artifacts does not necessarily
involve the reactivation of motor processes. I will show that the argument has some
problems because one of the assumptions on which is based can be challenged, that
is that function, and manipulation knowledge (hence, standard and ad-hoc affor-
dances) do not have an equal status in the conceptual knowledge of artifacts.

3 What the dissociation between function and manipulation

can (and cannot) tell us about the role of motor processes
in the conceptual knowledge of artifacts

Given the dissociation between function and manipulation, one could argue that the
reactivation of motor processes, which is plausibly needed when participants make
manipulation judgments, is not required to retrieve and process function knowledge.
Garcea and Mahon (2012) endorse precisely this claim. What is more, on the basis
of that, they reject the claim that the conceptual knowledge of artifacts involves the
reactivation of motor processes active when objects are actually manipulated (see
Barsalou 1999; Gallese and Lakoff 2005). The motivation for such a conclusion is
that, in their view, function knowledge is more relevant than manipulation knowl-
edge in artifacts conceptual knowledge, given that function knowledge (but not
manipulation knowledge) is part of the core of an artifact concept. This means that
entertaining information about an artifact’s function is necessary for a subject to be
said to possess at least a minimal concept of that artifact.9 Such a minimal or core
concept, on the other hand, need not involve any simulation of motor processes, thus
leading to the conclusion that motor processes are not constitutive of artifact con-
ceptual knowledge, at least in the minimal sense.

9
Even though Garcea and Mahon phrase their claim in terms of the necessity of function knowledge
for the possession of a minimal concept of an artifact, their discussion of apraxic patients (see below in
the text) seems to involve that function knowledge is even sufficient for a minimal concept possession.
However, they are careful not to phrase their hypothesis this way, so the following discussion will only
assume the requirement of necessity. Whether or not the notion of a minimal or core concept is an ade-
quate one, will remain on the background of the current discussion. For the sake of the argument, I will
assume that this notion is adequate, however it should be noted that it is not unproblematic. Pulvermüller
(2013) has pointed out to a number of criticisms concerning this notion in his discussion of the idea, pre-
sented by Mahon and Caramazza (2008) and Bedny and Caramazza (2011), that the functional contribu-
tion of sensorimotor systems to conceptual or semantic processing would consist in enriching (“coloring”
and “dressing”, Mahon and Caramazza 2008, p. 68f) the conceptual representation.

13
 Synthese

As evidence supporting their claim, the authors report on the case of apraxic
patients, who are impaired in manipulating objects (i.e., grasping and using them)
and even in pantomiming object use, even though they do not have any basic sen-
sory or motor dysfunction (e.g., Liepmann 1977; Rothi et al. 1991; for reviews see
Cubelli et al. 2000; Leiguarda and Marsden 2000; Mahon and Caramazza 2005).
Despite their deficit, apraxic patients seem to be still capable of naming objects
when visually presented. As far as naming a visually presented object is diagnos-
tic of concept possession, apraxic patients do have conceptual knowledge of arti-
facts despite not being able to manipulate objects and, thus, not being able arguably
to reactivate the related motor processes offline, when they would be required to
retrieve conceptual knowledge related to the visually presented object.10
The structure of the argument put forward by Garcea and Mahon (2012) is an
illustration of a more general strategy to adjudicate between different accounts of the
role of motor processes in conceptual knowledge of artifacts, and it is then worth-
while to analyze it more closely. Here I will argue that the argument does not go
through. The reason is that the conclusion endorsed by the authors is based on a
premise that can be challenged. In particular, I will argue that the premise by which
function knowledge is more relevant than manipulation knowledge in an artifact
conceptual knowledge should be rejected.
In their paper, Garcea and Mahon introduce two opposite views on the role of
motor processes in the conceptual knowledge of artifacts: the Embodied Cognition
Hypothesis (ECH) and their hypothesis that in other papers they call the Grounding
by Interaction Hypothesis11 (GIH; Mahon and Caramazza 2009, 2011). The main
disagreement between these hypotheses, as characterized by the authors, can be cap-
tured in the following claims.
Grounding by Interaction Hypothesis:
GIH1: “… part of the core of an artifact concept is knowledge of function
(‘what for’)…” (Garcea and Mahon 2012, p. 3)
GIH2: “… while there is significant interaction and exchange of information
between the systems that represent manipulation, function, and visual knowl-
edge, they are nonetheless functionally dissociable systems and motor knowl-
edge is not constitutive of function knowledge” (ib., p. 3).
Embodied Cognition Hypothesis:
ECH1: “… conceptual processing of tools necessarily involves the retrieval or
simulation of motor information …” (ib., p. 2).

10
It should be noted, though, that apraxic patients have been found to be able to associate an appropri-
ate hand posture to novel objects, but not to familiar objects (Buxbaum et al. 2003). Thus, manipulation
knowledge might be compromised in apraxic patients only for familiar objects, but not for novel objects.
11
The Grounding by Interaction Hypothesis holds that there is a level of conceptual content which is
“abstract” or “symbolic”, that is, not constituted by sensory and motor information. However, sensori-
motor systems functionally contribute to conceptual processing by “coloring” or “dressing” the concept
(Mahon and Caramazza 2008, p. 68f; see also note 10 above).

13
Synthese

ECH2: “… a necessary and intermediary step in the process of retrieving (or

computing) function knowledge is simulation of the motor movements that are
associated with using the object. In other words, motor-relevant information
about how to manipulate objects is, in part, constitutive of function knowl-
edge: part of what it means to know an object’s function … is to know how to
use the object” (ib., p. 2).
More precisely, these claims are used to set apart the Embodied Cognition
Hypothesis from the Grounding by Interaction Hypothesis on the basis of two differ-
ent arguments which, consistently with Garcea and Mahon’s interpretation, can be
reconstructed as follow.
Grounding by Interaction Hypothesis:

(a) Part of the core of an artifact concept is knowledge of function;

(b) Motor-relevant information about how to manipulate objects is not constitutive
of function knowledge;
(c) Thus, motor-relevant information about how to manipulate objects is not con-
stitutive of the core of an artifact concept.

Embodied Cognition Hypothesis:

(a) Part of the core of an artifact concept is knowledge of function;

(b′) Motor-relevant information about how to manipulate objects is constitutive of
function knowledge;
(c′) Thus, motor-relevant information about how to manipulate objects is constitu-
tive of the core of an artifact concept.

Notably, the arguments are reconstructed by Garcea and Mahon in such a way that
both hypotheses assume the claim (a), that is, that knowledge about an artifact’s
function is part of the core of that artifact’s concept. The claim (a) is then presented
as unproblematic. Where the two hypotheses diverge is in the claims (b) and (b′),
respectively rejecting or endorsing the idea that reactivation of motor processes
active during actual manipulation of objects is required to retrieve or compute func-
tion knowledge (and, hence, is constitutive of it). From that, different conclusions
follow as to whether or not motor-relevant information about how to manipulate
an artifact is also part of that artifact concept ((c) and (c′)). The crux of the argu-
ment seems to be whether (b) or (b′) is correct, that is, whether or not manipulation
knowledge is constitutive of function knowledge. Here, I argue that this is not the
crux of the argument and that whether (b) or (b′) is correct is irrelevant to adjudi-
cate between the Grounding by Interaction Hypothesis and the Embodied Cognition
Hypothesis.
One could start from a different assumption and claim that motor-relevant infor-
mation associated to object use and manipulation can account as well as function
knowledge for the specificity of artifacts, that is, manipulation knowledge is part of
the core of an artifact concept. If we assume this starting point, then it becomes pos-
sible to make sense of some findings, which are not compatible with the view that

13
 Synthese

function knowledge has a privileged status as part of the core of artifact concepts. I
will briefly mention some of these findings and explain how they challenge the view
that function knowledge is more relevant than manipulation knowledge in artifact
conceptual knowledge (for more extensive reviews see, e.g., Kellenbach et al. 2003;
Boronat et al. 2005).
Given the assumption of a privileged relationship between function knowledge
and the conceptual knowledge of artifact, one would expect that a deficit in func-
tion knowledge accompanies a deficit in representing artifacts. However, it has
been reported that functional feature knowledge is spared in patients with selective
impairments in representing artifacts compared to animals (Lambon-Ralph et al.
1998). Thus, the assumption that artifacts are characteristically represented mainly
according to their function is at odds with these results. A second relevant finding
concerns a peculiar pattern of spared and compromised knowledge in some patients
who have deficits in representing smaller artifacts but not large artifacts with clear
functions (e.g., buildings, vehicles) (Warrington and McCarthy 1983, 1987). This
pattern cannot be explained by a deficit in representing function knowledge because
the large artifacts used in the task have a clear function. Some other relevant dimen-
sion must be involved in artifact conceptual knowledge to explain the dissociation
between small and large artifacts. Finally, deficits in body-part knowledge tend to
co-occur with deficits in artifact knowledge (Sacchett and Humphreys 1992; War-
rington and McCarthy 1987). Again, this is difficult to explain assuming the priority
of function knowledge in artifact conceptual knowledge, because a deficit in rep-
resenting function knowledge would not explain why body-part knowledge is also
compromised given that body-parts do not have a clear function.
These results challenge the idea that artifacts are mainly represented according to
their function (of course, this is still consistent with the idea that function knowledge
is relevant to artifact concepts). An alternative view, which would allow us to make
sense of the findings reported above, is that another form of knowledge can account
for the specificity of artifacts, that is, manipulation knowledge. According to this
account, it is possible to explain the above findings as related to deficits in manipu-
lation knowledge. It is worth reminding at this stage that the current discussion has
been focusing on manipulable artifacts (see Introduction). What is at stake here is
the strong claim (exemplified by Garcea and Mahon’s argument) that even manipu-
lable artifacts are characteristically represented according to their function, while
motor-relevant information associated to their actual use and manipulation is not
part of the core of those artifact concepts. This strong claim is not only at odds with
the evidence so far presented but also with additional neuropsychological and neuro-
imaging results showing differences between manipulable and non-manipulable arti-
facts. Whereas these differences cannot be accounted for if one assumes that all arti-
facts, including manipulable ones, are represented mainly in terms of their function,
they are consistent with the idea that motor-relevant information related to object
use and manipulation is crucially involved in representing manipulable artifacts.
Buxbaum and Saffran (2002) showed that apraxic patients had relative deficits
in representing artifacts, and these deficits were associated with an impairment
in manipulation knowledge, but not function knowledge. This suggests the pos-
sibility that manipulation knowledge subserved by sensory-motor cortices plays a

13
Synthese

prominent role in the representation of artifacts. Accordingly, the cortical activa-

tions reported in studies of artifact representation are consistent with those associ-
ated with action representation (e.g., Rizzolatti and Fadiga 1998). Other imaging
studies have directly investigated the hypothesis that activations associated with
manipulable artifacts reflect action-related processes rather than knowledge of func-
tion. In one of these studies, Kellenbach et al. (2003) showed participants pictures of
manipulable and non-manipulable objects and asked them to make judgments about
their function and, for manipulable objects, the manner in which they are manipu-
lated. Irrespective of the task, the network of cortical regions associated with action
representation was more strongly activated by manipulable than non-manipulable
artifacts, and there were also some specific activations when subjects answered
questions about actions associated with manipulable objects, which might reflect,
according to the experimenters, processes involved in the explicit retrieval of manip-
ulation knowledge. These results contribute to suggest that manipulation knowledge,
subserved by sensory-motor cortices, is of central importance in the representation
of manipulable artifacts (see Boronat et al. 2005 for a replication of the results also
using verbal material).
To sum up, the pattern of neuropsychological findings and neuroimaging results
does not support the contention that knowledge about the function of artifacts is
more relevant than manipulation knowledge as part of the core of artifact concepts.
These results are more consistent with an alternative interpretation, according to
which motor processes active during the use and manipulation of artifacts are also
reactivated during the conceptual knowledge of artifacts. Thus, manipulation knowl-
edge plays a crucial role in the conceptual knowledge of artifacts. This is not to say,
of course, that function knowledge is not required or less relevant than manipulation
knowledge. None of the studies reported above shows that function knowledge is
not necessary for the conceptual knowledge of artifacts. However, this is not what
I wanted to argue. The point was rather to show that manipulation knowledge is
crucially involved in the conceptual knowledge of artifacts and, hence, is part of the
core of an artifact concept.
If function knowledge and manipulation knowledge have, at least, equal status in
the conceptual knowledge of artifacts, then the current discussion has a noteworthy
impact on the argument put forward by Garcea and Mahon. In particular, it shows
that the question whether or not motor-relevant information related to the manipula-
tion of artifacts is constitutive of artifact conceptual knowledge is independent of
the question whether or not this information is constitutive of function knowledge.
Motor-Relevant information might not be constitutive of function knowledge and
still be part of the core of an artifact concept. Garcea and Mahon’s argument fails to
discriminate between the Grounding by Interaction Hypothesis and the Embodied
Cognition Hypothesis. The dissociation between function knowledge and manipula-
tion knowledge is only relevant to rule out the involvement of motor processes in the
conceptual knowledge of artifacts if function knowledge is assumed to be part of the
core of artifact concepts whereas manipulation knowledge is not. However, this is
not the case, so the dissociation between function and manipulation does not license
any conclusion as to the role of motor processes in artifact conceptual knowledge.
In order to address this issue, a different route has to be taken. In the next and final

13
 Synthese

section, I suggest that a valid strategy would consist in directly contrasting the rela-
tive contribution of these forms of knowledge and I illustrate an example of such
a strategy which, unlike the studies reviewed above, contrasts specifically the two
notions introduced here, that is, standard affordances and ad-hoc affordances.

4 The role of standard and ad‑hoc affordance in artifact concepts:

clarifications and directions for future research

The discussion in the previous paragraph has shown that the dissociation between
function knowledge and manipulation knowledge does not license any conclusion
as to the role of motor processes in artifact conceptual knowledge. I suggested that
manipulation knowledge might be part of the core of an artifact concept even though
it is not constitutive of function knowledge. Given that this dissociation provides a
criterion for the neuropsychological plausibility of the distinction between standard
and ad-hoc affordances (so I have argued), the conclusion drawn from the previous
discussion can be rephrased as follows. Ad hoc affordances related to how objects
are manipulated are as relevant as standard affordances in the conceptual knowl-
edge of artifacts because they also can be argued to be part of the core of an artifact
concept.
Assuming that my argument has so far gone through, an opponent might object
that there is an obvious problem with my proposal of considering manipulation
knowledge as part of the core of an artifact concept. Now that I have rephrased the
proposal in terms of standard and ad-hoc affordance, it seems clear that the pro-
posal cannot be accepted because ad-hoc affordances cannot possibly be part of the
core of an artifact concept. An example will illustrate the skepticism of the oppo-
nent. Consider a situation in which a person is sitting on a bench and wishes not to
meet an acquaintance who is approaching. In this special circumstance, a newspaper
bought a few minutes before can take on an ad-hoc affordance of hiding behind it.
In what sense should this ad-hoc affordance be considered as part of the core of my
concept of a newspaper with the same rights of its standard affordance of reading?
This seems highly counterintuitive because I might have never experienced such an
ad-hoc affordance for the newspaper before, and still it seems that on my account I
would be forced to include it in my concept of a newspaper.
Here is my reply. If in the example above we replace the newspaper with a match-
box, the scenario just described becomes completely senseless. Whereas it is clear
to everyone that a newspaper can afford hiding behind it, no one would doubt that
a matchbox does not possibly afford such an action. We all know that, even though
most of us are unlikely to have experienced a similar scenario before. How do we
know that? A possibility, supported by experimental studies (see, for example, Glen-
berg and Robertson 2000), is that we mentally simulate motor interactions with those
objects reactivating offline motor processes that are active during physical interactions
with them. This implicit simulation of motor-relevant information guides our current
interactions with objects even in situations never experienced before, and—what is
more—guides our conceptual processing of the situation (allowing us to establish that a
newspaper affords the hiding-behind action while a matchbox does not) when it is just

13
Synthese

linguistically described as in our current example. This is not to say that the concept of
a newspaper includes some pre-stored information concerning the possibility of using
it to hide from someone. What I mean here in claiming that motor-relevant informa-
tion is part of the core of the concept of a newspaper is that we can flexibly draw upon
this information, reactivating it via implicit motor simulation of actual interactions with
newspapers, to establish on the fly that a newspaper affords the hiding action.
Consistent with this hypothesis, in an event-related potential (ERP) study, we
showed that the ad-hoc affordances induced by the linguistic context while reading
short stories were integrated immediately during semantic comprehension (Cosen-
tino et al. 2017). The experimental task required subjects to read short stories in
which conflict was triggered between standard affordances and the contextually-
induced ad-hoc affordances. For example, in a situation in which a funnel has been
glued to the wall, and the agent wants to hang up her coat, an ad-hoc affordance of
“hanging” is induced for the funnel which conflicts with the standard affordance of
“pouring” (i.e., pouring a liquid into a container). If information about the func-
tion of the object, stored in semantic long-term memory, were more prominent than
motor-related information derived by interactions with the object (and reactivated
when processing the current situation described linguistically), we should expect
that the standard affordance of funnel is activated by default independently of the
situation at hand and only subsequently replaced by an ad-hoc affordance contex-
tually-derived in that specific situation. The timing of this default activation and
subsequent replacement during semantic comprehension is, of course, too quick to
be captured in a behavioral experiment. However, using the electroencephalography
(EEG) method is possible to track these processes millisecond by millisecond. Our
study focused on the N400, which is an ERP component thought to reflect lexical
retrieval and/or semantic integration processes (see Kutas and Federmeier 2011,
for a review). Measuring the N400 at the onset of the action verb (e.g., hang/pour)
which followed the artifact noun (e.g., funnel) it was possible to establish that given
a situation that triggers an ad-hoc affordance for an artifact, the ad-hoc affordance is
immediately integrated as part of the contextually specified meaning of the noun and
the standard affordance of that artifact is not at all activated.
Taken together, behavioral and ERP results suggest that ad-hoc affordances are
as prominent as standard affordances in the conceptual knowledge of artifacts. This
is consistent with the view that motor-relevant information related to how artifacts
are manipulated might constitute part of the core of an artifact concept regardless
of whether or not it also constitutes function knowledge. Thus, the contrast between
standard and ad-hoc affordances provides a new promising way to experimentally
address the issue of what constitutes an artifact concept and what is the role of motor
processes in artifact conceptual knowledge.

5 Conclusions

Gibson’s notion of affordance seems to have only limited applicability to artifacts

because it does not capture their sociocultural nature. Broadening the notion of affor-
dance to include also these aspects is problematic as well because a univocal notion

13
 Synthese

of affordance obfuscates significant differences between Gibson’s affordances of

the environment and culturally-derived affordances of artifacts. In this paper, I sug-
gested that in order to overcome these difficulties, a distinction has to be introduced
in the domain of affordances between standard and ad-hoc affordances. Whereas
standard affordances bring about information related to the culturally specified func-
tion of an artifact (i.e., what the artifact is usually for), ad-hoc affordances bring
about information concerned with how that artifact is manipulated (i.e., how we
motorically interact with it). I have argued that this distinction is not only required
to advance the philosophical debate on affordances, but it is also empirically plau-
sible as it maps onto the neuropsychological dissociation between function knowl-
edge and manipulation knowledge. Given the alleged priority of function knowledge
in artifact concepts, this dissociation has been taken to support the argument that
motor-relevant information related to how artifacts are manipulated is not consti-
tutive of artifact conceptual knowledge, because it is not constitutive of function
knowledge. Challenging the premise of this argument, that is, that function knowl-
edge is more relevant than manipulation knowledge in artifact concepts, I rejected
its conclusion. I instead suggested that a more promising way of addressing the issue
of the role of motor processes in artifact conceptual knowledge consists in exploit-
ing the distinction between standard and ad-hoc affordance to design more accurate
experimental tasks.

Acknowledgements This research has been presented at the 24th Annual Meeting of the European Soci-
ety for Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP) in St. Andrews, at the CoSt2016 in Düsseldorf, and in the
research colloquium of the Mercator Research Group “Structure of Memory.” I would like to thank the
participants in these events for their helpful comments. Also, I thank the colleagues who contributed to
this research with their valuable insights, in particular, Anna M. Borghi, Francesco Ferretti, and Markus
Werning.

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