Testing perceptual limits of functional units: Are there “automatic” tendencies to associate tools and objects?

▶ Neural activation for judging tool-object functional relationships was evaluated. ▶ Subjects were naïve (had no task-related consciousness) of our experimental goals. ▶ No neural mechanism for continually evaluating tool matching/mismatching was found. ▶ Intention may be a requirement for determining tool-object functional relationships.