ABSTRACT
After decades of intense work on embodied concepts, there is no doubt about the existence of strong relationships between manipulable object concepts and action. The current research challenge is to specify the extent, impact and limits of these relationships (see also the recent review from van Elk, van Schie, & Bekkering, 2014 on action semantics). In the present chapter, we address this issue from two complementary angles that deal with action involvement in A) single object concepts and B) object conceptual organization. For each approach, we provide response elements to three fundamental questions: what, when and how does action play a role in object concepts? By doing so, we hope to provide a framework for studying embodied phenomena that may help circumscribe the role of action in object concepts and conceptual organization, and open new directions for future research in this domain.
