Lametti Daniel R, Vaillancourt Gina L, Whitman Maura A, Skipper Jeremy I
Department of Psychology, Acadia University, Wolfville, Canada.
Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2025 Jun;32(3):1381-1390. doi: 10.3758/s13423-024-02618-w. Epub 2025 Jan 3.
Hand movements frequently occur with speech. The extent to which the memories that guide co-speech hand movements are tied to the speech they occur with is unclear. Here, we paired the acquisition of a new hand movement with speech. Thirty participants adapted a ballistic hand movement of a joystick to a visuomotor rotation either in isolation or while producing a word in time with their movements. Within participants, the after-effect of adaptation (i.e., the motor memory) was examined with or without co-incident speech. After-effects were greater for hand movements produced in the context in which adaptation occurred - i.e., with or without speech. In a second experiment, 30 new participants adapted a hand movement while saying the words "tap" or "hit". After-effects were greater when hand movements occurred with the specific word produced during adaptation. The results demonstrate that memories of co-speech hand movements are partially tied to the speech they are learned with. The findings have implications for theories of sensorimotor control and our understanding of the relationship between gestures, speech and meaning.
手部动作经常与言语同时出现。指导伴随言语的手部动作的记忆与它们所伴随的言语之间的关联程度尚不清楚。在这里，我们将新的手部动作的习得与言语配对。30名参与者将操纵杆的弹道式手部动作适应视觉运动旋转，要么单独进行，要么在动作的同时及时说出一个单词。在参与者内部，在有或没有同时出现的言语的情况下，研究了适应的后效（即运动记忆）。对于在适应发生的情境中产生的手部动作，无论有无言语，后效都更大。在第二个实验中，30名新参与者在说“轻拍”或“击打”这两个词时适应手部动作。当手部动作与适应过程中说出的特定单词同时出现时，后效更大。结果表明，伴随言语的手部动作的记忆部分与学习时的言语相关联。这些发现对感觉运动控制理论以及我们对手势、言语和意义之间关系的理解具有启示意义。
