Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience, Institute of Cognitive Neurology, Favaloro University Buenos Aires, Argentina ; Institute of Neuroscience, Favaloro University Buenos Aires, Argentina ; National Scientific and Technical Research Council Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Mar 4;7:57. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00057. eCollection 2013.
Converging neuroscientific evidence suggests the existence of close links between language and sensorimotor cognition. Accordingly, during the comprehension of meaningful actions, our brain would recruit semantic-related operations similar to those associated with the processing of language information. Consistent with this view, electrophysiological findings show that the N400 component, traditionally linked to the semantic processing of linguistic material, can also be elicited by action-related material. This review outlines recent data from N400 studies that examine the understanding of action events. We focus on three specific domains, including everyday action comprehension, co-speech gesture integration, and the semantics involved in motor planning and execution. Based on the reviewed findings, we suggest that both negativities (the N400 and the action-N400) reflect a common neurocognitive mechanism involved in the construction of meaning through the expectancies created by previous experiences and current contextual information. To shed light on how this process is instantiated in the brain, a testable contextual fronto-temporo-parietal model is proposed.
神经科学的研究证据表明，语言和感觉运动认知之间存在密切的联系。因此，在理解有意义的动作时，我们的大脑会调用与语言信息处理相关的语义相关操作。这一观点与电生理研究结果一致，表明传统上与语言材料的语义处理相关的 N400 成分也可以被与动作相关的材料引发。本综述概述了 N400 研究中关于动作事件理解的最新数据。我们关注三个特定领域，包括日常动作理解、伴随言语的手势整合以及运动规划和执行中的语义。基于回顾的发现，我们认为负向波（N400 和动作 N400）反映了一种共同的神经认知机制，通过先前经验和当前上下文信息产生的期望来构建意义。为了阐明这一过程在大脑中是如何实现的，提出了一个可测试的上下文额颞顶叶模型。
