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Abstract

We report three experiments where we investigated the role of movement in object recognition. Previous studies have suggested a distinct and separate mechanism for object motion encoding, related to the action or motor-based system. To date, however, the role of an objectamp;8217;s motion in long-term memory representations has not been explicitly tested. Here we were specifically interested in whether an objectamp;8217;s characteristic motion patterns are integrated with static properties in an objectamp;8217;s representation in memory. To that end, we used a simple categorization task where novel objects were categorized on the basis of two static (color and shape) and two dynamic (action and path) properties. The amp;8220;actionamp;8221; of an object referred to its intrinsic motion pattern, whereas amp;8220;pathamp;8221; referred to an objectamp
;lsquo;s extrinsic motion patter
n (i.e., the route an object took). In Experiment 1, we found that all properties were relevant for categorization with the exception of path. This result was not due to path being less salient than other properties (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, we found that when the action property was redundant that path was now used for categorization, suggesting that path was not used with action in Experiment 1 because of temporal order effects. Our findings argue for a cue-integrated model of object representation in memory.