No role for motor affordances in visual working memory

Abstract

Motor affordances have been shown to play a role in visual object identification and categorization. The present study explored whether working memory is likewise supported by motor affordances. Use of motor affordances should be disrupted by motor interference, and this effect should be larger for objects that have motor affordances than for objects that do not. In 5 experiments participants performed a working memory task on photographs of manipulable and nonmanipulable objects. Concurrent motor, verbal, or visual tasks interfered with memory performance in general but did not interact with object manipulability. Thus, there was no evidence that motor affordances support visual working memory. © 2012 American Psychological Association.