Abstract When participants make left and right key-press responses to a non-location stimulus feature, but the stimuli occur in left and right locations, performance is better when the stimulus and response locations correspond than when they do not. This phenomenon, known as the Simon effect, has attracted considerable interest because it indicates that stimulus location is processed automatically when the task goal includes selecting the correct one of two spatially distinct responses. Subsequent studies have shown that key-press responses do not yield object-based correspondence effects for all judgements of stimulus properties, particularly when the objects are centred such that the graspable part does not vary in distinct left and right locations from trial to trial. Of most concern for the present study is evidence that the correspondence effects are obtained only when the required judgements involve a stimulus attribute related to grasping. Two experiments using spatial Simon task paradigm were conducted to determine whether an object-based correspondence effect for flashlight stimuli reported by Pellicano et al. (2010) is due to a grasping affordance provided by the handle or spatial coding of the asymmetry of feature markings on the flashlight. The experimental design adopted was 2 (correspondence: handle-to-response position corresponding vs. non-corresponding) × 2 (functional state: active vs. passive) within-subjects design. In Experiment 1 the stimuli were the same as those from their Experiment 2, whereas in Experiments 2 the stimuli were modified versions with the graspable handle removed. Participants in all experiments performed upright/inverted orientation judgements on the flashlight stimuli. Experiment 1 of the present study was designed to verify Pellicano et al.’s (2010) results and obtain initial evidence as to whether participants attend to the row of strips. Experiment 2 provided a test of the grasping-affordance and spatial coding accounts by removing the handles from the flashlight, which also increased the asymmetry of the row of strips. The results of Experiment 1 replicated those of Pellicano et al.: A small but significant object-based correspondence effect was evident, mainly when the torch was in an active state. With the handle of the flashlight removed in Experiment 2, making the barrel markings more asymmetric in the display, the correspondence effect was larger. The spatial coding account predicts a larger correspondence effect when the handle is removed, whereas the grasping-affordance account predicts an effect that is reduced in size, or at least no larger, than that in Experiment 1. The results are in agreement with a spatial-coding account and difficult to reconcile with a grasping-affordance account. Keywords: grasping; functional affordance; Simon effect; spatial coding; spatial correspondence