title: Chained Activation of the Motor System during Language Understanding.
abstract: Two experiments were carried out to investigate whether and how one important characteristic of the motor system, that is its goal-directed organization in motor chains, is reflected in language processing. This possibility stems from the embodied theory of language, according to which the linguistic system re-uses the structures of the motor system. The participants were presented with nouns of common tools preceded by a pair of verbs expressing grasping or observational motor chains (i.e., grasp-to-move, grasp-to-use, look-at-to-grasp, and look-at-to-stare). They decided whether the tool mentioned in the sentence was the same as that displayed in a picture presented shortly after. A primacy of the grasp-to-use motor chain over the other motor chains in priming the participants' performance was observed in both the experiments. More interestingly, we found that the motor information evoked by the noun was modulated by the specific motor-chain expressed by the preceding verbs. Specifically, with the grasping chain aimed at using the tool, the functional motor information prevailed over the volumetric information, andvice versawith the grasping chain aimed at moving the tool (Experiment 2). Instead, the functional and volumetric information were balanced for those motor chains that comprise at least an observational act (Experiment 1). Overall our results are in keeping with the embodied theory of language and suggest that understanding sentences expressing an action directed toward a tool drives a chained activation of the motor system.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Milano-Bicocca Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Barbara F
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Marino
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di BolognaBologna, Italy; National Research Council (CNR), Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della CognizioneRome, Italy.
authors.forename: Anna M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Borghi
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Mediche e Chirurgiche, Università "Magna Graecia" di Catanzaro Catanzaro, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Buccino
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Sezione di Fisiologia, Università di Parma Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Riggio
keywords: affordances; embodied language; motor chains; motor system; reaction times