Dataset for: When affordances are not universal: The negative compatibility effect is modulated by task type and spatial association

Humans prepare motor actions when perceiving objects that afford specific behaviors, highlighting the tight link between perception and action. For example, seeing a graspable object like a mug can trigger hand movements aligned to its handle- a phenomenon known as the object affordance effect. Vainio et al. (2011) demonstrated this can produce a negative compatibility effect (NCE). This occurs when a spatially compatible prime object eliciting an affordance (e.g., a mug), but to be ignored, precedes a target requiring a spatial response. Given that task demands shape response execution (e.g., Schöpper & Frings, 2024), we hypothesized that the effect of affordance would vary accordingly. In Experiment 1, participants performed three tasks: arrow direction discrimination, shape discrimination, and circle localization. In all tasks, the time interval between the affordance object (a mug) and the onset of the target, as well as the compatibility between the mug and the response, varied. The arrow task replicated the NCE—responses were slower in compatible trials at short intervals. No compatibility effects were observed in the shape task. Notably, the localization task revealed a positive compatibility effect (PCE). The variation in compatibility effects suggests task-dependent affordances. Experiment 2 manipulated the target position relative to the fixation to investigate the PCE in the localization task and explore the differences in the compatibility effect. Although PCE was not replicated, the NCE appeared again for location tasks. Our results suggest that task constraints shape the compatibility effect, and distractor-induced affordances engage inhibitory mechanisms only when spatial features are relevant. The current study demonstrated that the NCE reflects inhibitory mechanisms involved in visually based response selection (see Vainio & Ellis, 2020), and it only arises when the task requires processing of spatial information (e.g., direction discrimination or localization). The variation in findings across studies with different experimental designs may reflect underlying differences in contextual and task-related factors. In this regard, our study contributes to this debate by illustrating how task context critically determines the influence of primed affordances on response modulation within a single experimental framework. This thereby emphasizes the visuomotor flexibility in responding to object affordances, which can be influenced by contextual factors such as task requirements, thematic relations between objects (e.g., Haddad et al., 2023; 2024), and object features like color (e.g., Garofalo & Riggio, 2022). In real-life scenarios, this implies that when searching for your mug among others to reach-to-grasp it based on its color or shape, the orientation affordances of surrounding objects do not interfere with your action. However, if you are searching based on the anticipated location or orientation of your mug, the handle affordances of distractor mugs can interfere with the reach-to-grasp action. This finding nicely fits the affordance competition hypothesis (Cisek, 2007), which is concerned with selecting the action possibility that best matches the current goals of an organism. unknown