Kable Joseph W, Lease-Spellmeyer Jessica, Chatterjee Anjan
Department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania, 3 West Gates Building, 3400 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-4283, USA.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2002 Jul 1;14(5):795-805. doi: 10.1162/08989290260138681.
Human concepts can be roughly divided into entities (prototypically referred to in language by nouns) and events (prototypically referred to in language by verbs). While much work in cognitive neuroscience has investigated how the brain represents different categories of entities, less attention has been given to the more basic distinction between entities and events. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine brain activity while subjects performed a conceptual matching task that required them to access knowledge of objects and actions, using either pictures or words. Since action events involve movement through space, we hypothesized that accessing knowledge of actions would cause greater activation in brain regions involved in motion or spatial processing. In comparison to objects, accessing knowledge of actions through pictures was accompanied by increased activity bilaterally in the human MT/MST and nearby regions of the lateral temporal cortex. Accessing knowledge of actions through words activated areas just anterior and dorsal to area MT/MST on the left, within the posterior aspect of the middle and superior temporal gyri. We propose that the lateral occipital-temporal cortex contains a mosaic of neural regions that processes different kinds of motion, ranging from the perception of objects moving in the world to the conception of movement implied in action verbs. The lateral occipital-temporal cortex mediates the perceptual and conceptual features of action events, similar to the way that the ventral occipital-temporal cortex processes the perceptual and conceptual features of entities.
人类概念大致可分为实体（在语言中典型地由名词指代）和事件（在语言中典型地由动词指代）。虽然认知神经科学的许多研究探讨了大脑如何表征不同类别的实体，但对于实体和事件之间更基本的区别关注较少。我们使用功能磁共振成像来检查大脑活动，在此过程中，受试者执行一项概念匹配任务，该任务要求他们通过图片或文字来获取关于物体和动作的知识。由于动作事件涉及在空间中的移动，我们推测获取动作知识会导致参与运动或空间处理的脑区有更强的激活。与物体相比，通过图片获取动作知识时，双侧人类MT/MST及外侧颞叶皮质附近区域的活动增加。通过文字获取动作知识时，激活的区域位于左侧MT/MST区域前方和背侧，在颞中回和颞上回后部。我们提出，枕颞外侧皮质包含一系列神经区域，这些区域处理不同类型的运动，从对世界中物体运动的感知到动作动词所隐含的运动概念。枕颞外侧皮质介导动作事件的感知和概念特征，类似于腹侧枕颞皮质处理实体的感知和概念特征的方式。
