Mechanical knowledge, but not manipulation knowledge, might support action prediction

Bach et al. (2014) proposed a novel model of action understanding, the affordancematching hypothesis, to explain how people both interpret and predict actions of others. This model is based on two types of information. The first is function knowledge and is supposed to inform people about the goals that can be achieved with tools. The second is manipulation knowledge and is thought to provide information about the motor behaviors required to achieve these goals. In their model, function knowledge and manipulation support action interpretation and action prediction, respectively. Here, I mainly discuss the idea that manipulation knowledge might be central to action prediction. The distinction made by Bach et al. (2014) between function knowledge and manipulation knowledge is inspired to some extent from a part of the literature on apraxia (e.g., Buxbaum and Saffran, 2002; van Elk et al., 2014). In their model, function knowledge is viewed as storing information about the goals of tools, namely, their usual function1. For instance, as they