Tools Across Time: Affordance Perception Through Prehistoric, Antique and Modern Tools

Date

2026-6-8

Author

Koca, Ceyda

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Affordance refers to the possibilities for action that objects provide based on their physical characteristics and the perceptual and motor capabilities of individuals.Material culture encompasses all tangible artifacts, objects, and tools created and used by humans, reflecting the dynamic interplay between humans and their environment. Together, these concepts offer a foundational framework for understanding human evolution, particularly through the lens of tool use. Stone tools, the earliest known artifacts of material culture, hold immense significance in archaeology and cognitive science for documenting and interpreting early human behavior. These tools not only shed light on the cognitive and motor processes required for their production but also reveal the evolving interaction between humans and their environment. Despite their importance, the body of research linking affordance theory to human cognitive evolution remains limited. This thesis investigated how cultural familiarity and object design shape affordance perception across prehistoric, antique, and modern tools. Through a series of preliminary studies and two experiments, I examined how participants identified, described, and spatially mapped grasp and usage regions on a diverse set of tools. Results showed that higher familiarity was associated with reduced variability in action descriptions and clearer separation between grasp and usage areas. In contrast, unfamiliar and historically distant tools elicited broader, more exploratory responses. Together, these findings highlight the interplay of cultural knowledge, perceptual cues, and motor experience in shaping affordance perception.

Subject Keywords

Affordance, Visual Perception, Material Perception, Cognitive Evolution, Stone Tools

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/119442

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis