Rueschemeyer Shirley-Ann, Lindemann Oliver, van Rooij Daan, van Dam Wessel, Bekkering Harold
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Exp Psychol. 2010;57(4):260-6. doi: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000031.
Embodied theories of language processing suggest that this motor simulation is an automatic and necessary component of meaning representation. If this is the case, then language and action systems should be mutually dependent (i.e., motor activity should selectively modulate processing of words with an action-semantic component). In this paper, we investigate in two experiments whether evidence for mutual dependence can be found using a motor priming paradigm. Specifically, participants performed either an intentional or a passive motor task while processing words denoting manipulable and nonmanipulable objects. The performance rates (Experiment 1) and response latencies (Experiment 2) in a lexical-decision task reveal that participants performing an intentional action were positively affected in the processing of words denoting manipulable objects as compared to nonmanipulable objects. This was not the case if participants performed a secondary passive motor action (Experiment 1) or did not perform a secondary motor task (Experiment 2). The results go beyond previous research showing that language processes involve motor systems to demonstrate that the execution of motor actions has a selective effect on the semantic processing of words. We suggest that intentional actions activate specific parts of the neural motor system, which are also engaged for lexical-semantic processing of action-related words and discuss the beneficial versus inhibitory nature of this relationship. The results provide new insights into the embodiment of language and the bidirectionality of effects between language and action processing.
语言加工的具身理论表明，这种运动模拟是意义表征的一个自动且必要的组成部分。如果是这样的话，那么语言和动作系统应该相互依赖（即，运动活动应该选择性地调节带有动作语义成分的单词的加工）。在本文中，我们通过两个实验研究是否可以使用运动启动范式找到相互依赖的证据。具体来说，参与者在处理表示可操纵和不可操纵物体的单词时，执行了有意或被动的运动任务。词汇判断任务中的表现率（实验1）和反应潜伏期（实验2）表明，与不可操纵物体相比，执行有意动作的参与者在处理表示可操纵物体的单词时受到了积极影响。如果参与者执行次要的被动运动动作（实验1）或不执行次要运动任务（实验2），则情况并非如此。这些结果超越了先前的研究，先前研究表明语言加工涉及运动系统，而这些结果表明运动动作的执行对单词的语义加工有选择性影响。我们认为有意动作会激活神经运动系统的特定部分，这些部分也参与与动作相关单词的词汇语义加工，并讨论了这种关系的有益性与抑制性本质。这些结果为语言的具身性以及语言与动作加工之间的双向效应提供了新的见解。
