Popp Margot, Trumpp Natalie M, Kiefer Markus
Ulm University, Department of Psychiatry, Ulm, Germany.
Transl Neurosci. 2019 Oct 15;10:200-222. doi: 10.1515/tnsci-2019-0035. eCollection 2019.
Recent theories propose a flexible recruitment of sensory and motor brain regions during conceptual processing depending on context and task. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study investigated the influence of context and task on conceptual processing of action and sound verbs. Participants first performed an explicit semantic context decision task, in which action and sound verbs were presented together with a context noun. The same verbs were repeatedly presented in a subsequent implicit lexical decision task together with new action and sound verbs. Thereafter, motor and acoustic localizer tasks were administered to identify brain regions involved in perception and action. During the explicit task, we found differential activations to action and sound verbs near corresponding sensorimotor brain regions. During the implicit lexical decision task, differences between action and sound verbs were absent. However, feature-specific repetition effects were observed near corresponding sensorimotor brain regions. The present results suggest flexible conceptual representations depending on context and task. Feature-specific effects were observed only near, but not within corresponding sensorimotor brain regions, as defined by the localizer tasks. Our results therefore only provide limited evidence in favor of grounded cognition theories assuming a close link between the conceptual and the sensorimotor systems.
近期理论提出，在概念加工过程中，根据情境和任务的不同，感觉和运动脑区会进行灵活的征募。本功能磁共振成像研究调查了情境和任务对动作动词和声音动词概念加工的影响。参与者首先执行一项明确的语义情境决策任务，其中动作动词和声音动词与一个情境名词一起呈现。相同的动词在随后的一项隐性词汇决策任务中与新的动作动词和声音动词一起反复呈现。此后，进行运动和听觉定位任务，以识别参与感知和动作的脑区。在明确任务期间，我们发现在相应的感觉运动脑区附近，动作动词和声音动词存在不同的激活情况。在隐性词汇决策任务期间，动作动词和声音动词之间没有差异。然而，在相应的感觉运动脑区附近观察到了特定特征的重复效应。目前的结果表明，概念表征会根据情境和任务而灵活变化。仅在由定位任务定义的相应感觉运动脑区附近，而非在其内部，观察到了特定特征效应。因此，我们的结果仅提供了有限的证据，支持假设概念系统与感觉运动系统之间存在紧密联系的具身认知理论。
