Bernardis Paolo, Salillas Elena, Caramelli Nicoletta
Scuola Superiore di Studi Umanistici, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Cogn Neuropsychol. 2008 Oct-Dec;25(7-8):1114-28. doi: 10.1080/02643290801921707.
We report two experiments that provide converging behavioural and neurophysiological evidence on the relationship between the meaning of iconic gestures and words. Experiment 1 exploited a semantic priming paradigm and revealed interference between gestures and words when they were not related in meaning, but no facilitation when they were. This result was confirmed in Experiment 2, where ERPs were recorded during silent word reading with the same paradigm. The analysis showed a negative deflection peaking near 400 ms (N400) and, in the left hemisphere, greater negative values for verbs than for nouns. Differently from the classical distribution obtained with verbal stimuli, we found an N400 that spread more over central-anterior areas of the scalp, suggesting that the meaning systems of gesture and language do not overlap completely. These results are consistent with the view that the meaning systems for gesture and speech are tightly integrated.
我们报告了两项实验，它们提供了关于标志性手势和词语意义之间关系的一致行为和神经生理学证据。实验1采用了语义启动范式，揭示了手势和词语在意义不相关时存在干扰，但在意义相关时则没有促进作用。实验2使用相同范式在默读单词时记录脑电，证实了这一结果。分析显示在400毫秒左右出现负向偏转峰值（N400），并且在左半球，动词的负向值比名词更大。与使用言语刺激获得的经典分布不同，我们发现N400在头皮中央前部区域分布更广，这表明手势和语言的意义系统并未完全重叠。这些结果与手势和言语意义系统紧密整合的观点一致。
