Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Neuropsychologia. 2019 Mar 18;126:82-91. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.07.022. Epub 2017 Jul 19.
Language that describes actions, for instance verbs, can help to predict future actions of conspecifics in social interactions. Language and action are therefore interrelated. This interrelation has been described on a behavioral level for adults and toddlers. Furthermore, in adults, the sensorimotor system is involved in this interrelation. However, little is known about the early interrelation on the neural level at the onset of verb acquisition. In the present study, we examined the role of the sensorimotor system during the processing of acoustically presented verbs that describe dynamic actions and visually presented actions in toddlers, who are in the earliest stage of expressive language development. The activity of the sensorimotor system, in particular the suppression of the mu rhythm, was measured by means of electroencephalography (EEG). Results showed a significant suppression of the mu rhythm during both the processing of action verbs and observed actions, but not during the processing of pseudoverbs. This suggests that the sensorimotor system is already involved in the processing of action and language early in life.
描述动作的语言，例如动词，可以帮助预测社交互动中同类个体的未来行为。因此，语言和行为是相互关联的。这种关联在成人和幼儿身上已经在行为层面上进行了描述。此外，在成年人中，感觉运动系统参与了这种相互关系。然而，关于动词习得开始时神经水平上的早期关联，人们知之甚少。在本研究中，我们研究了感觉运动系统在处理以听觉呈现的描述动态动作的动词和以视觉呈现的动作时的作用，这些动词处于表达性语言发展的最早阶段。通过脑电图（EEG）测量了感觉运动系统的活动，特别是 mu 节律的抑制。结果表明，在处理动作动词和观察到的动作时，mu 节律明显受到抑制，但在处理伪动词时则没有。这表明感觉运动系统在生命早期就已经参与到动作和语言的处理中。
