Claudia Bonfiglioli

Claudia Bonfiglioli is a researcher at the Experimental Psychology Labs.

Main interests

Objects’ mental representations and action
A number of studies suggests that objects’ mental representations contain motor-related information. I am interested in investigating the nature of such information, referring in particular to affordances. According to Gibson’s definition (1979), affordances are physical features of an object which inform the observer about how to act with/on it.

In my studies I investigate:
a) whether the influence of affordances on motor performance changes depending on the type of motor interaction required with the object. Will different features of the very same object become the relevant affordance if the action oriented to it has different aims?
b) to what extent affordances are determined by features of the object only, or also by a combination of (1) features of the context where the action takes place, and (2) the action capabilities of particular actors.
c) the cross-talk between language and action by analysing whether grasping actions are affected by concurrent processing of words referring to objects that have a same or different motor-relevant feature (in particular, that require same or different type of grip).

Publications

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