Gianelli Claudia, Dalla Volta Riccardo
Division of Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam Potsdam, Germany.
Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Università Magna Graecia Catanzaro, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2015 Jan 5;5:1511. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01511. eCollection 2014.
The neurophysiological and behavioral correlates of action-related language processing have been debated for long time. A precursor in this field was the study by Buccino et al. (2005) combining transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and behavioral measures (reaction times, RTs) to study the effect of listening to hand- and foot-related sentences. In the TMS experiment, the authors showed a decrease of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) recorded from hand muscles when processing hand-related verbs as compared to foot-related verbs. Similarly, MEPs recorded from leg muscles decreased when participants processed foot-related as compared to hand-related verbs. In the behavioral experiment, using the same stimuli and a semantic decision task the authors found slower RTs when the participants used the body effector (hand or foot) involved in the actual execution of the action expressed by the presented verb to give their motor responses. These findings were interpreted as an interference effect due to a simultaneous involvement of the motor system in both a language and a motor task. Our replication aimed to enlarge the sample size and replicate the findings with higher statistical power. The TMS experiment showed a significant modulation of hand MEPs, but in the sense of a motor facilitation when processing hand-related verbs. On the contrary, the behavioral experiment did not show significant results. The results are discussed within the general debate on the time-course of the modulation of motor cortex during implicit and explicit language processing and in relation to the studies on action observation/understanding.
与动作相关的语言加工的神经生理学和行为学关联已经争论了很长时间。该领域的先驱是布奇诺等人（2005年）的研究，他们结合经颅磁刺激（TMS）和行为测量（反应时间，RTs）来研究听与手和脚相关句子的效果。在TMS实验中，作者发现，与处理与脚相关的动词相比，处理与手相关的动词时，从手部肌肉记录的运动诱发电位（MEPs）有所下降。同样，与处理与手相关的动词相比，参与者处理与脚相关的动词时，从腿部肌肉记录的MEPs下降。在行为实验中，使用相同的刺激和语义判断任务，作者发现，当参与者使用与所呈现动词所表达动作实际执行相关的身体效应器（手或脚）做出运动反应时，反应时间较慢。这些发现被解释为由于运动系统同时参与语言和运动任务而产生的干扰效应。我们的重复实验旨在扩大样本量并以更高的统计效力重复这些发现。TMS实验显示手部MEPs有显著调节，但在处理与手相关的动词时是运动促进的意义上。相反，行为实验没有显示出显著结果。在关于内隐和外显语言加工过程中运动皮层调节的时间进程的一般辩论中，以及与动作观察/理解的研究相关的背景下，对结果进行了讨论。
