Action verbs and demonstrative pronouns affect volumetric affordance activation.
Memory & cognition April 1, 2026 T Ledneva, Y Shtyrov, O Shevtsov et al.
Demonstrative pronouns (this, that) modulate the perceived affordances of objects, similar to action verbs. In a stimulus-response compatibility paradigm, participants heard linguistic primes combining a verb (action/observation) and a demonstrative (proximal/distal), followed by a target word denoting a manipulable object. Action verbs expedited response times for congruent object-verb trials, confirming their role in activating manual affordances. Proximal demonstratives showed a similar capacity, especially when paired with an action verb. The findings support the view that language processing is intertwined with sensorimotor systems and that demonstratives are integral to spatial cognition, modulating object affordances.