Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, via Petracco 8, 33100, Udine, Italy.
Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT), INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Pacheco de Melo 1860, C1126AAB, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Sci Rep. 2017 Oct 2;7(1):12538. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-12928-w.
This study examined whether systematic whole-body stimulation and increased attention to visuospatial motion patterns can enhance the appraisal of action meanings evoked by naturalistic texts. Participants listened to action and neutral (non-action) narratives before and after videogame-based bodily training, and responded to questions on information realized by verbs (denoting abstract and action processes) and circumstances (conveying locative or temporal details, for example). Strategically, we worked with dyslexic children, whose potential comprehension deficits could give room to post-training improvements. Results showed a selective boost in understanding of action information, even when controlling for baseline performance. Also, this effect proved uninfluenced by short-term memory skills, and it was absent when training relied on non-action videogames requiring minimal bodily engagement. Of note, the movements described in the texts did not match those performed by participants, suggesting that well-established effector- and direction-specific language embodiment effects may be accompanied by more coarse-grained sensorimotor resonance, driven by activation of motor and visuospatial sensory systems. In sum, the stimulation of movement-related mechanisms seems to selectively boost the appraisal of actions evoked by naturalistic texts. By demonstrating such links between two real-life activities, our study offers an empirical tie between embodied and situated accounts of cognition.
本研究考察了系统性的全身刺激和对视觉运动模式的更多关注是否能增强对自然文本所唤起的动作意义的评价。参与者在基于视频游戏的身体训练之前和之后听了动作和中性（非动作）叙述，并对动词（表示抽象和动作过程）和环境（传达位置或时间细节，例如）所实现的信息做出回答。策略上，我们与诵读困难的儿童一起工作，他们潜在的理解缺陷可能为培训后提供改进的空间。结果表明，即使在控制基线表现的情况下，对动作信息的理解也有选择性的提高。此外，当训练依赖于需要最小身体参与的非动作视频游戏时，这种效果不受短期记忆技能的影响，而且也不存在。值得注意的是，文本中描述的动作与参与者所做的动作不匹配，这表明已经确立的效应器和方向特异性语言体现效应可能伴随着更粗糙的感觉运动共鸣，由运动和视觉空间感觉系统的激活驱动。总之，运动相关机制的刺激似乎选择性地增强了对自然文本所唤起的动作的评价。通过在两种现实生活活动之间展示这种联系，我们的研究为认知的具身和情境化解释之间提供了一个经验联系。
