title: Perception, action, and word meanings in the human brain: the case from action verbs.
abstract: Among other things, humans talk about what they perceive and do, like "glowing,""hopping," and "squeaking." What is the relationship between our sensory-motor experiences and word meanings? Does understanding action-verbs rely on the same neural circuits as seeing and acting? The available evidence indicates that sensory-motor experience and word meanings are represented in distinct, but interacting systems. Understanding action-verbs does not rely on early modality-specific visual or motor circuits. Instead, word comprehension relies on a network of amodal brain regions in the left frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices that represent conceptual and grammatical properties of words. Interactions between word meanings and sensory-motor experiences occur in higher-order polymodal brain regions.
authors.affiliation: Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Center for Mind/brain Sciences CIMeC), University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bedny
authors.affiliation: Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Center for Mind/brain Sciences CIMeC), University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Alfonso
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Caramazza
mesh_terms: D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics / Q000379:methods; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology; D011859:Radiography; D012660:Semantics; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*