In pantomiming the use of tools, it is possible to use a body part as the object (BPO) or imagine the object (IO). The present four studies test how conceptualizing the functions of objects may underlie BPO production in a non-clinical adult population. We showed that familiar vs. unfamiliar tools (Study 1) and visual experience only vs. visual + motor experience with novel tools (Study 2) made no difference in BPO production. In Study 3, participants showed a trend for higher BPO production for tools presented in two-dimensional pictures rather than in reality. In Study 4, participants' functional fixedness was experimentally manipulated: participants were told unfamiliar tools had either five functions or only one function. Participants produced significantly more BPOs in the one-function condition. These results suggest that conceptualizing objects as having a fixed function is a predictor of BPO production.
Keywords: Affordances; Apraxia; Body-part-as-object; Conceptualization; Functional fixedness; Pantomime.
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