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2009, NeuroImage
This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights
Brain and Language
The Two-Level Theory of verb meaning: An approach to integrating the semantics of action with the mirror neuron system2010 •
Language comprehension engages a distributed network of frontotemporal, parietal, and sensorimotor regions, but it is still unclear how meaning of words and their semantic relationships are represented and processed within these regions and to which degrees lexico-semantic representations differ between regions and semantic types. We used fMRI and representational similarity analysis to relate word-elicited multivoxel patterns to semantic similarity between action and object words. In left inferior frontal (BA 44-45-47), left posterior middle temporal and left precentral cortex, the similarity of brain response patterns reflected semantic similarity among action-related verbs, as well as across lexical classes-between action verbs and tool-related nouns and, to a degree, between action verbs and food nouns, but not between action verbs and animal nouns. Instead, posterior inferior temporal cortex exhibited a reverse response pattern, which reflected the semantic similarity among object-related nouns, but not action-related words. These results show that semantic similarity is encoded by a range of cortical areas, including multimodal association (e.g., anterior inferior frontal, posterior middle temporal) and modality-preferential (premotor) cortex and that the representational geometries in these regions are partly dependent on semantic type, with semantic similarity among action-related words crossing lexical-semantic category boundaries.
Activity in frontocentral motor regions is routinely reported when individuals process action words and is often interpreted as the implicit simulation of the word content. We hypothesized that these neural responses are not invariant components of action word processing but are modulated by the context in which they are evoked. Using fMRI, we assessed the relative weight of stimulus features (i.e., the intrinsic semantics of words) and contextual factors, in eliciting word-related sensorimotor activity. Participants silently read action-related and state verbs after performing a mental rotation task engaging either a motor strategy (i.e., referring visual stimuli to their own bodily movements) or a visuospatial strategy. The mental rotation tasks were used to induce, respectively, a motor and a nonmotor "cognitive context" into the following silent reading. Irrespective of the verb category, reading in the motor context, compared with reading in the nonmotor context, increased the activity in the left primary motor cortex, the bilateral premotor cortex, and the right somatosensory cortex. Thus, the cognitive context induced by the preceding motor strategy-based mental rotation modulated word-related sensorimotor responses, possibly reflecting the strategy of referring a word meaning to one's own bodily activity. This pattern, common to action and state verbs, suggests that the context in which words are encountered prevails over the intrinsic semantics of the stimuli in mediating the recruitment of sensorimotor regions.
Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are characterised by deficits in understanding and expressing emotions and are frequently accompanied by alexithymia, a difficulty in understanding and expressing emotion words. Words are differentially represented in the brain according to their semantic category and these difficulties in ASC predict reduced activation to emotion-related words in limbic structures crucial for affective processing. Semantic theories view 'emotion actions' as critical for learning the semantic relationship between a word and the emotion it describes, such that emotion words typically activate the cortical motor systems involved in expressing emotion actions such as facial expressions. As ASC are also characterised by motor deficits and atypical brain structure and function in these regions, motor structures would also be expected to show reduced activation during emotion-semantic processing. Here we used event-related fMRI to compare passive processing of emotion words in comparison to abstract verbs and animal names in typically-developing controls and individuals with ASC. Relatively reduced brain activation in ASC for emotion words, but not matched control words, was found in motor areas and cingulate cortex specifically. The degree of activation evoked by emotion words in the motor system was also associated with the extent of autistic traits as revealed by the Autism Spectrum Quotient. We suggest that hypoactivation of motor and limbic regions for emotion word processing may underlie difficulties in processing emotional language in ASC. The role that sensorimotor systems and their connections might play in the affective and social-communication difficulties in ASC is discussed.
2010 •
Actions influence perceptions, but how this occurs may change across the lifespan. Studies have investigated how object-directed actions (e.g., learning about objects through manipulation) affect subsequent perception, but how abstract actions affect perception, and how this may change across development, have not been well studied. In the present study, we address this question, teaching children (4-7 year-olds) and adults sung melodies, with or without an abstract motor component, and using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to determine how these melodies are subsequently processed. Results demonstrated developmental change in the motor cortices and Middle Temporal Gyrus. Results have implications for understanding sensori-motor integration in the developing brain, and may provide insight into motor learning use in some music education techniques.
Cognitive Neuropsychology
Lesion symptom mapping of manipulable object naming in nonfluent aphasia: Can a brain be both embodied and disembodied?2014 •
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
A neuroanatomical examination of embodied cognition: semantic generation to action-related stimuli2012 •
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Body-part-specific Representations of Semantic Noun Categories2012 •
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Action Concepts in the Brain: An Activation-likelihood Estimation Meta-analysis2013 •
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
Are the motor features of verb meanings represented in the precentral motor cortices? Yes, but within the context of a flexible, multilevel architecture for conceptual knowledge2015 •
NeuroImage
Motor-system dynamics during naturalistic reading of action narratives in first and second language2020 •
Cognitive Science Perspectives on Verb Representation and Processing
Visual and Motor Features of the Meanings of Action Verbs: A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective2014 •
2011 •
Frontiers in human neuroscience
An investigation of semantic similarity judgments about action and non-action verbs in Parkinson's disease: implications for the Embodied Cognition Framework2013 •
Neuropsychologia
Embodied language in first- and second-language speakers: Neural correlates of processing motor verbs2014 •
Brain and Language
Parkinson's disease disrupts both automatic and controlled processing of action verbs2012 •
Consciousness and Cognition
Grasping language – A short story on embodiment2010 •
Arxiv preprint arXiv:1111.7190
The Embodied Language. Why language should not be conceived of in abstraction from the brain and body, and the consequences for robotics2011 •
Neuropsychologia
The effects of rTMS over the primary motor cortex: the link between action and language2013 •
2010 •
Frontiers in human neuroscience
The lateralization of motor cortex activation to action-words2011 •
Brain Structure and Function, 2018 - Springer
Linguistic and motor representations of everyday complex actions: an fNIRS investigation2018 •
2012 •
Journal of cognitive neuroscience
The function of words: Distinct neural correlates for words denoting differently manipulable objects2010 •
Journal of Physiology-Paris
Naming dynamic and static actions: Neuropsychological evidence2008 •
Brain and Cognition, Elsevier
Language for action: Motor resonance during the processing of human and robotic voices2017 •
Brain and Language
A place for nouns and a place for verbs? A critical review of neurocognitive data on grammatical-class effects2011 •
NeuroImage
Action word meaning representations in cytoarchitectonically defined primary and premotor cortices2008 •
Journal of Cognitive …
Conceptual Representations of Action In the Lateral Temporal Cortex2005 •
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Disrupting the brain to validate hypotheses on the neurobiology of language2013 •
2014. Storytelling in language teaching – re-evaluating the weight of kinaesthetic modality for brain-compatible pedagogy. Storytelling: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1(2), 13–52.
Storytelling in language teaching – re-evaluating the weight of kinaesthetic modality for brain-compatible pedagogy2014 •
Language and Cognition
Does the motor system contribute to the perception and understanding of actions? Reflections on Gregory Hickok’s The myth of mirror neurons: the real neuroscience of communication and cognition2014 •
Cerebral Cortex
Activation of Sensory-Motor Areas in Sentence Comprehension2010 •