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Solana P, Escámez O, Casasanto D, Chica AB, Santiago J. No support for a causal role of primary motor cortex in construing meaning from language: An rTMS study. Neuropsychologia 2024; 196:108832. [PMID: 38395339 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.108832] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2023] [Revised: 02/15/2024] [Accepted: 02/15/2024] [Indexed: 02/25/2024]
Abstract
Embodied cognition theories predict a functional involvement of sensorimotor processes in language understanding. In a preregistered experiment, we tested this idea by investigating whether interfering with primary motor cortex (M1) activation can change how people construe meaning from action language. Participants were presented with sentences describing actions (e.g., "turning off the light") and asked to choose between two interpretations of their meaning, one more concrete (e.g., "flipping a switch") and another more abstract (e.g., "going to sleep"). Prior to this task, participants' M1 was disrupted using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). The results yielded strong evidence against the idea that M1-rTMS affects meaning construction (BF01 > 30). Additional analyses and control experiments suggest that the absence of effect cannot be accounted for by failure to inhibit M1, lack of construct validity of the task, or lack of power to detect a small effect. In sum, these results do not support a causal role for primary motor cortex in building meaning from action language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pablo Solana
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain.
| | - Omar Escámez
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain
| | | | - Ana B Chica
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain
| | - Julio Santiago
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain
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2
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Tomasello R, Carriere M, Pulvermüller F. The impact of early and late blindness on language and verbal working memory: A brain-constrained neural model. Neuropsychologia 2024; 196:108816. [PMID: 38331022 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.108816] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/02/2023] [Revised: 01/26/2024] [Accepted: 02/04/2024] [Indexed: 02/10/2024]
Abstract
Neural circuits related to language exhibit a remarkable ability to reorganize and adapt in response to visual deprivation. Particularly, early and late blindness induce distinct neuroplastic changes in the visual cortex, repurposing it for language and semantic processing. Interestingly, these functional changes provoke a unique cognitive advantage - enhanced verbal working memory, particularly in early blindness. Yet, the underlying neuromechanisms and the impact on language and memory-related circuits remain not fully understood. Here, we applied a brain-constrained neural network mimicking the structural and functional features of the frontotemporal-occipital cortices, to model conceptual acquisition in early and late blindness. The results revealed differential expansion of conceptual-related neural circuits into deprived visual areas depending on the timing of visual loss, which is most prominent in early blindness. This neural recruitment is fundamentally governed by the biological principles of neural circuit expansion and the absence of uncorrelated sensory input. Critically, the degree of these changes is constrained by the availability of neural matter previously allocated to visual experiences, as in the case of late blindness. Moreover, we shed light on the implication of visual deprivation on the neural underpinnings of verbal working memory, revealing longer reverberatory neural activity in 'blind models' as compared to the sighted ones. These findings provide a better understanding of the interplay between visual deprivations, neuroplasticity, language processing and verbal working memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rosario Tomasello
- Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, WE4 Freie Universität Berlin, 14195, Berlin, Germany; Cluster of Excellence' Matters of Activity. Image Space Material', Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 10099, Berlin, Germany.
| | - Maxime Carriere
- Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, WE4 Freie Universität Berlin, 14195, Berlin, Germany
| | - Friedemann Pulvermüller
- Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, WE4 Freie Universität Berlin, 14195, Berlin, Germany; Cluster of Excellence' Matters of Activity. Image Space Material', Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 10099, Berlin, Germany; Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 10117, Berlin, Germany; Einstein Center for Neurosciences, 10117, Berlin, Germany
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3
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Zhang Y, Chen S, Peng Y, Yang X. The concrete processing of Chinese action metaphors: an ERP study. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1362978. [PMID: 38638519 PMCID: PMC11025353 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1362978] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/29/2023] [Accepted: 02/29/2024] [Indexed: 04/20/2024] Open
Abstract
The present research adopts ERP (Event-Related Potentials) technology to investigate whether there exists a concreteness effect in the processing of Chinese action verbs within metaphorical context. The mean amplitudes of N400 activated by action metaphors were compared with those activated by literal verbs and abstract verbs. The findings indicated that the Met verbs evoked a significantly larger N400 response at frontal brain region compared to the Abs verbs at a time window 200-500 ms, while the Met verbs elicited a notably greater N400 amplitude specifically at the posterior brain region in comparison to the Lit verbs at 300-500 ms time window. These results may be interpreted as indicating that the comprehension of the Met verbs is based on the concrete action semantics.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Shifa Chen
- College of Foreign Languages, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China
| | - Yule Peng
- College of Foreign Languages, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China
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4
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Díaz Rivera MN, Amoruso L, Bocanegra Y, Suárez JX, Moreno L, Muñoz E, Birba A, García AM. Electrophysiological alterations during action semantic processing in Parkinson's disease. Neurobiol Aging 2024; 136:78-87. [PMID: 38330642 PMCID: PMC10942755 DOI: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2024.01.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2023] [Revised: 12/29/2023] [Accepted: 01/04/2024] [Indexed: 02/10/2024]
Abstract
Assessments of action semantics consistently reveal markers of Parkinson's disease (PD). However, neurophysiological signatures of the domain remain under-examined in this population, especially under conditions that allow patients to process stimuli without stringent time constraints. Here we assessed event-related potentials and time-frequency modulations in healthy individuals (HPs) and PD patients during a delayed-response semantic judgment task involving related and unrelated action-picture pairs. Both groups had shorter response times for related than for unrelated trials, but they exhibited discrepant electrophysiological patterns. HPs presented significantly greater N400 amplitudes as well as theta enhancement and mu desynchronization for unrelated relative to related trials. Conversely, N400 and theta modulations were abolished in the patients, who further exhibited a contralateralized cluster in the mu range. None of these patterns were associated with the participants' cognitive status. Our results suggest that PD involves multidimensional neurophysiological disruptions during action-concept processing, even under task conditions that elicit canonical behavioral effects. New constraints thus emerge for translational neurocognitive models of the disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mariano N Díaz Rivera
- Centro de Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad de San Andrés (UdeSA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Lucía Amoruso
- Centro de Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad de San Andrés (UdeSA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), Spain; Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Spain
| | - Yamile Bocanegra
- Grupo de Neurociencias de Antioquia, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia; Grupo Neuropsicología y Conducta (GRUNECO), Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia
| | - Jazmin X Suárez
- Grupo Neuropsicología y Conducta (GRUNECO), Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia
| | - Leonardo Moreno
- Sección de Neurología, Hospital Pablo Tobón Uribe, Medellín, Colombia
| | - Edinson Muñoz
- Departamento de Lingüística y Literatura, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Agustina Birba
- Centro de Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad de San Andrés (UdeSA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
| | - Adolfo M García
- Centro de Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad de San Andrés (UdeSA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Departamento de Lingüística y Literatura, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile; Global Brain Health Institute, University of California, San Francisco, United States.
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5
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Zhang Y, Chen S, Peng Y, Yang X, Yang J. The Role of the Motor System in L1 and L2 Action Verb Processing for Chinese Learners of English: Evidence from Mu Rhythm Desynchronization. Behav Sci (Basel) 2024; 14:268. [PMID: 38667064 PMCID: PMC11047514 DOI: 10.3390/bs14040268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2024] [Revised: 03/17/2024] [Accepted: 03/20/2024] [Indexed: 04/29/2024] Open
Abstract
The nature of semantic representation has long been a key question in linguistic research. The Embodied Cognition theory challenges the traditional view of language representation, stating that semantic information stems from the sensory-motor cortex, which is activated automatically during semantic processing. However, most of the evidence comes from monolingual studies; it remains unclear whether second-language (L2) comprehension involves different semantic representations or mirrors the pattern seen in first-language (L1) processing. Therefore, the present study investigated the role of the sensory-motor system in language processing via making Electroencephalography (EEG) recordings during the processing of L1 and L2 action verbs. The results showed that L1 (Chinese) action verbs generated higher mu-event-related desynchronization (ERD) than L1 abstract verbs in the early processing stage (250 ms after verb presentation), and the same phenomenon was also observed for L2 (English). The results also indicated that language modulated the processing of action verbs, with L1 action verbs eliciting stronger ERD than L2 action verbs. These results demonstrate that the sensory-motor cortex plays a crucial role in comprehending both L1 and L2 action verbs.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Shifa Chen
- College of Foreign Languages, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China; (Y.Z.); (X.Y.); (J.Y.)
| | - Yule Peng
- College of Foreign Languages, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China; (Y.Z.); (X.Y.); (J.Y.)
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6
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Ulanov M, Kopytin G, Bermúdez-Margaretto B, Ntoumanis I, Gorin A, Moiseenko O, Blagovechtchenski E, Moiseeva V, Shestakova A, Jääskeläinen I, Shtyrov Y. Regionally specific cortical lateralization of abstract and concrete verb processing: Magnetic mismatch negativity study. Neuropsychologia 2024; 195:108800. [PMID: 38246413 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.108800] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/24/2023] [Revised: 11/03/2023] [Accepted: 01/14/2024] [Indexed: 01/23/2024]
Abstract
The neural underpinnings of processing concrete and abstract semantics remain poorly understood. Previous fMRI studies have shown that multimodal and amodal neural networks respond differentially to different semantic types; importantly, abstract semantics activates more left-lateralized networks, as opposed to more bilateral activity for concrete words. Due to the lack of temporal resolution, these fMRI results do not allow to easily separate language- and task-specific brain responses and to disentangle early processing stages from later post-comprehension phenomena. To tackle this, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG), a time-resolved neuroimaging technique, in combination with a task-free oddball mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm, an established approach to tracking early automatic activation of word-specific memory traces in the brain. We recorded the magnetic MMN responses in 30 healthy adults to auditorily presented abstract and concrete action verbs to assess lateralization of word-specific lexico-semantic processing in a set of neocortical areas. We found that MMN responses to these stimuli showed different lateralization patterns of activity in the upper limb motor area (BA4) and parts of Broca's area (BA45/BA47) within ∼100-350 ms after the word disambiguation point. Importantly, the greater leftward response lateralization for abstract semantics was due to the lesser involvement of the right-hemispheric homologues, not increased left-hemispheric activity. These findings suggest differential region-specific involvement of bilateral sensorimotor systems already in the early automatic stages of processing abstract and concrete action semantics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maxim Ulanov
- HSE University, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Moscow, Russia.
| | - Grigory Kopytin
- HSE University, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Moscow, Russia
| | - Beatriz Bermúdez-Margaretto
- Universidad de Salamanca, Facultad de Psicología, Departamento de Psicología Básica, Psicobiología y Metodología de Las Ciencias Del Comportamiento, Salamanca, Spain; Instituto de Integración en La Comunidad - INICO, Salamanca, Spain
| | - Ioannis Ntoumanis
- HSE University, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Moscow, Russia
| | - Aleksei Gorin
- HSE University, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Moscow, Russia
| | - Olesya Moiseenko
- HSE University, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Moscow, Russia
| | | | - Victoria Moiseeva
- HSE University, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Moscow, Russia
| | - Anna Shestakova
- HSE University, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Moscow, Russia
| | - Iiro Jääskeläinen
- HSE University, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Moscow, Russia
| | - Yury Shtyrov
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
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7
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Liu L, Wang Y, Mou H, Zhou C, Liu T. Motor experience modulates neural processing of lexical action language: Evidence from rugby players. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2024; 249:105369. [PMID: 38150793 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2023.105369] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/04/2023] [Revised: 12/15/2023] [Accepted: 12/18/2023] [Indexed: 12/29/2023]
Abstract
The perceptual symbol theory proposes a sensorimotor simulation in language processing, emphasizing the role of motor experience. However, the neural basis of motor experience on lexical-level language processing remains little known. In the current fMRI study, we compared brain activation and task-based functional connectivity in 28 rugby players and 28 novices during rugby- specialized and daily verb processing. Distinct differences were observed between the two groups in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus and left angular gyrus regions during specialized verb processing. Notably, intergroup functional connectivity was evident between the left superior temporal gyrus and the right precentral gyrus during specialized verb processing. This study contributes insights into the neural responses and connectivity patterns associated with motor experience at the lexical level, highlighting its potential impact on language processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Likai Liu
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China; Center for Exercise and Brain Science, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China
| | - Yingying Wang
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China; Center for Exercise and Brain Science, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China
| | - Hong Mou
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China; Center for Exercise and Brain Science, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China
| | - Chenglin Zhou
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China; Center for Exercise and Brain Science, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China
| | - Tianze Liu
- Department of Orthopedics, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University (Second Military Medical University), Shanghai 200433, China.
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García-Gámez AB, Macizo P. Gestures as Scaffolding to Learn Vocabulary in a Foreign Language. Brain Sci 2023; 13:1712. [PMID: 38137160 PMCID: PMC10741801 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci13121712] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/30/2023] [Revised: 12/04/2023] [Accepted: 12/06/2023] [Indexed: 12/24/2023] Open
Abstract
This paper investigates the influence of gestures on foreign language (FL) vocabulary learning. In this work, we first address the state of the art in the field and then delve into the research conducted in our lab (three experiments already published) in order to finally offer a unified theoretical interpretation of the role of gestures in FL vocabulary learning. In Experiments 1 and 2, we examined the impact of gestures on noun and verb learning. The results revealed that participants exhibited better learning outcomes when FL words were accompanied by congruent gestures compared to those from the no-gesture condition. Conversely, when meaningless or incongruent gestures were presented alongside new FL words, gestures had a detrimental effect on the learning process. Secondly, we addressed the question of whether or not individuals need to physically perform the gestures themselves to observe the effects of gestures on vocabulary learning (Experiment 3). Results indicated that congruent gestures improved FL word recall when learners only observed the instructor's gestures ("see" group) and when they mimicked them ("do" group). Importantly, the adverse effect associated with incongruent gestures was reduced in the "do" compared to that in the "see" experimental group. These findings suggest that iconic gestures can serve as an effective tool for learning vocabulary in an FL, particularly when the gestures align with the meaning of the words. Furthermore, the active performance of gestures helps counteract the negative effects associated with inconsistencies between gestures and word meanings. Consequently, if a choice must be made, an FL learning strategy in which learners acquire words while making gestures congruent with their meaning would be highly desirable.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ana Belén García-Gámez
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), 18071 Granada, Spain;
- Departamento de Psicología Experimental, Facultad de Psicología, Campus de Cartuja, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
| | - Pedro Macizo
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), 18071 Granada, Spain;
- Departamento de Psicología Experimental, Facultad de Psicología, Campus de Cartuja, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
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Rosanne O, Alves de Oliveira A, Falk TH. EEG Amplitude Modulation Analysis across Mental Tasks: Towards Improved Active BCIs. SENSORS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2023; 23:9352. [PMID: 38067725 PMCID: PMC10708818 DOI: 10.3390/s23239352] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2023] [Revised: 11/15/2023] [Accepted: 11/20/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023]
Abstract
Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology has emerged as an influential communication tool with extensive applications across numerous fields, including entertainment, marketing, mental state monitoring, and particularly medical neurorehabilitation. Despite its immense potential, the reliability of BCI systems is challenged by the intricacies of data collection, environmental factors, and noisy interferences, making the interpretation of high-dimensional electroencephalogram (EEG) data a pressing issue. While the current trends in research have leant towards improving classification using deep learning-based models, our study proposes the use of new features based on EEG amplitude modulation (AM) dynamics. Experiments on an active BCI dataset comprised seven mental tasks to show the importance of the proposed features, as well as their complementarity to conventional power spectral features. Through combining the seven mental tasks, 21 binary classification tests were explored. In 17 of these 21 tests, the addition of the proposed features significantly improved classifier performance relative to using power spectral density (PSD) features only. Specifically, the average kappa score for these classifications increased from 0.57 to 0.62 using the combined feature set. An examination of the top-selected features showed the predominance of the AM-based measures, comprising over 77% of the top-ranked features. We conclude this paper with an in-depth analysis of these top-ranked features and discuss their potential for use in neurophysiology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Olivier Rosanne
- Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Quebec, Montreal, QC H5A 1K6, Canada;
| | - Alcyr Alves de Oliveira
- Graduate Program in Psychology and Health, Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre 90050-170, Brazil;
| | - Tiago H. Falk
- Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Quebec, Montreal, QC H5A 1K6, Canada;
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Bechtold L, Cosper SH, Malyshevskaya A, Montefinese M, Morucci P, Niccolai V, Repetto C, Zappa A, Shtyrov Y. Brain Signatures of Embodied Semantics and Language: A Consensus Paper. J Cogn 2023; 6:61. [PMID: 37841669 PMCID: PMC10573703 DOI: 10.5334/joc.237] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2022] [Accepted: 07/29/2022] [Indexed: 10/17/2023] Open
Abstract
According to embodied theories (including embodied, embedded, extended, enacted, situated, and grounded approaches to cognition), language representation is intrinsically linked to our interactions with the world around us, which is reflected in specific brain signatures during language processing and learning. Moving on from the original rivalry of embodied vs. amodal theories, this consensus paper addresses a series of carefully selected questions that aim at determining when and how rather than whether motor and perceptual processes are involved in language processes. We cover a wide range of research areas, from the neurophysiological signatures of embodied semantics, e.g., event-related potentials and fields as well as neural oscillations, to semantic processing and semantic priming effects on concrete and abstract words, to first and second language learning and, finally, the use of virtual reality for examining embodied semantics. Our common aim is to better understand the role of motor and perceptual processes in language representation as indexed by language comprehension and learning. We come to the consensus that, based on seminal research conducted in the field, future directions now call for enhancing the external validity of findings by acknowledging the multimodality, multidimensionality, flexibility and idiosyncrasy of embodied and situated language and semantic processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura Bechtold
- Institute for Experimental Psychology, Department for Biological Psychology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Samuel H. Cosper
- Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück, Germany
| | - Anastasia Malyshevskaya
- Centre for Cognition and Decision making, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, HSE University, Russian Federation
- Potsdam Embodied Cognition Group, Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Germany
| | | | | | - Valentina Niccolai
- Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Claudia Repetto
- Department of Psychology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy
| | - Ana Zappa
- Laboratoire parole et langage, Aix-Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France
| | - Yury Shtyrov
- Centre for Cognition and Decision making, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, HSE University, Russian Federation
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Denmark
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Banks B, Borghi AM, Fargier R, Fini C, Jonauskaite D, Mazzuca C, Montalti M, Villani C, Woodin G. Consensus Paper: Current Perspectives on Abstract Concepts and Future Research Directions. J Cogn 2023; 6:62. [PMID: 37841672 PMCID: PMC10573588 DOI: 10.5334/joc.238] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2022] [Accepted: 08/12/2022] [Indexed: 10/17/2023] Open
Abstract
concepts are relevant to a wide range of disciplines, including cognitive science, linguistics, psychology, cognitive, social, and affective neuroscience, and philosophy. This consensus paper synthesizes the work and views of researchers in the field, discussing current perspectives on theoretical and methodological issues, and recommendations for future research. In this paper, we urge researchers to go beyond the traditional abstract-concrete dichotomy and consider the multiple dimensions that characterize concepts (e.g., sensorimotor experience, social interaction, conceptual metaphor), as well as the mediating influence of linguistic and cultural context on conceptual representations. We also promote the use of interactive methods to investigate both the comprehension and production of abstract concepts, while also focusing on individual differences in conceptual representations. Overall, we argue that abstract concepts should be studied in a more nuanced way that takes into account their complexity and diversity, which should permit us a fuller, more holistic understanding of abstract cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Briony Banks
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, UK
| | - Anna M. Borghi
- Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
- Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council, Rome, Italy
| | - Raphaël Fargier
- Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Norway
| | - Chiara Fini
- Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
| | - Domicele Jonauskaite
- Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Claudia Mazzuca
- Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
| | - Martina Montalti
- Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Brescia, Italy
- Department of Medicine and Surgery – Unit of Neuroscience, University of Parma, Italy
| | - Caterina Villani
- Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Bologna, Italy
| | - Greg Woodin
- Department of English Language and Linguistics, University of Birmingham, UK
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12
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Kuhnke P, Kiefer M, Hartwigsen G. Conceptual representations in the default, control and attention networks are task-dependent and cross-modal. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2023; 244:105313. [PMID: 37595340 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2023.105313] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2023] [Revised: 07/03/2023] [Accepted: 08/10/2023] [Indexed: 08/20/2023]
Abstract
Conceptual knowledge is central to human cognition. Neuroimaging studies suggest that conceptual processing involves modality-specific and multimodal brain regions in a task-dependent fashion. However, it remains unclear (1) to what extent conceptual feature representations are also modulated by the task, (2) whether conceptual representations in multimodal regions are indeed cross-modal, and (3) how the conceptual system relates to the large-scale functional brain networks. To address these issues, we conducted multivariate pattern analyses on fMRI data. 40 participants performed three tasks-lexical decision, sound judgment, and action judgment-on written words. We found that (1) conceptual feature representations are strongly modulated by the task, (2) conceptual representations in several multimodal regions are cross-modal, and (3) conceptual feature retrieval involves the default, frontoparietal control, and dorsal attention networks. Conceptual representations in these large-scale networks are task-dependent and cross-modal. Our findings support theories that assume conceptual processing to rely on a flexible, multi-level architecture.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philipp Kuhnke
- Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany; Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
| | | | - Gesa Hartwigsen
- Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany; Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
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13
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Monaco E, Mouthon M, Britz J, Sato S, Stefanos-Yakoub I, Annoni JM, Jost LB. Embodiment of action-related language in the native and a late foreign language - An fMRI-study. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2023; 244:105312. [PMID: 37579516 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2023.105312] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2022] [Revised: 08/05/2023] [Accepted: 08/07/2023] [Indexed: 08/16/2023]
Abstract
Theories of embodied cognition postulate that language processing activates similar sensory-motor structures as when interacting with the environment. Only little is known about the neural substrate of embodiment in a foreign language (L2) as compared to the mother tongue (L1). In this fMRI study, we investigated embodiment of motor and non-motor action verbs in L1 and L2 including 31 late bilinguals. Half had German as L1 and French as L2, and the other half vice-versa. We collapsed across languages to avoid the confound between language and order of language acquisition. Region of interest analyses showed stronger activation in motor regions during L2 than during L1 processing, independently of the motor-relatedness of the verbs. Moreover, a stronger involvement of motor regions for motor-related as compared to non-motor-related verbs, similarly for L1 and L2, was found. Overall, the similarity between L1 and L2 embodiment seems to depend on individual and contextual factors.
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Affiliation(s)
- E Monaco
- Department of Neuroscience and Movement Science, Faculty of Science and Medicine, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - M Mouthon
- Department of Neuroscience and Movement Science, Faculty of Science and Medicine, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - J Britz
- Department of Neuroscience and Movement Science, Faculty of Science and Medicine, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - S Sato
- Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - I Stefanos-Yakoub
- Department of Neuroscience and Movement Science, Faculty of Science and Medicine, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - J M Annoni
- Department of Neuroscience and Movement Science, Faculty of Science and Medicine, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - L B Jost
- Department of Neuroscience and Movement Science, Faculty of Science and Medicine, University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
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14
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Vitale F, de Vega M. Disturbing the activity of the primary motor cortex by means of transcranial magnetic stimulation affects long term memory of sentences referred to manipulable objects. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1175217. [PMID: 37457058 PMCID: PMC10347394 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1175217] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2023] [Accepted: 06/19/2023] [Indexed: 07/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction Previous studies on embodied meaning suggest that simulations in the motor cortex play a crucial role in the processing of action sentences. However, there is little evidence that embodied meaning have functional impact beyond working memory. This study examines how the neuromodulation of the motor cortex (M1) could affect the processing of action-related language, measuring participants' performance in a long-term memory task. Method Participants were submitted to two sessions in separate days, one with low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and the other with sham rTMS. The pulses were delivered for 15 minutes over M1 or over V1, used as a control area. After each stimulation or sham period, the participants were asked to memorize a list of simple sentences, with a manual action verb or an attentional verb, followed in both cases by a noun referred to a manipulable object (e.g., to hang a cane vs. to observe a cane). Finally, they received the verbs as cues with instructions to recall the nouns. Results The results showed that low frequency rTMS on M1, compared to sham stimulation, significantly improved the performance in the memory task, for both types of sentences. No change in performance was found after the rTMS stimulation of V1. Discussion These results confirm that the perturbation on the motor system, affect the memory of manipulable object names in the context of sentences, providing further evidence of the role played by the sensorimotor system in the encoding and recall of concrete sentences of action.
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15
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Tian L, Chen H, Heikkinen PP, Liu W, Parviainen T. Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Activation in Motor and Language Areas Suggest a Compensatory Role of the Motor Cortex in Second Language Processing. NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE (CAMBRIDGE, MASS.) 2023; 4:178-197. [PMID: 37229145 PMCID: PMC10205076 DOI: 10.1162/nol_a_00093] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2022] [Accepted: 11/14/2022] [Indexed: 05/27/2023]
Abstract
The involvement of the motor cortex in language understanding has been intensively discussed in the framework of embodied cognition. Although some studies have provided evidence for the involvement of the motor cortex in different receptive language tasks, the role that it plays in language perception and understanding is still unclear. In the present study, we explored the degree of involvement of language and motor areas in a visually presented sentence comprehension task, modulated by language proficiency (L1: native language, L2: second language) and linguistic abstractness (literal, metaphorical, and abstract). Magnetoencephalography data were recorded from 26 late Chinese learners of English. A cluster-based permutation F test was performed on the amplitude of the source waveform for each motor and language region of interest (ROI). Results showed a significant effect of language proficiency in both language and motor ROIs, manifested as overall greater involvement of language ROIs (short insular gyri and planum polare of the superior temporal gyrus) in the L1 than the L2 during 300-500 ms, and overall greater involvement of motor ROI (central sulcus) in the L2 than the L1 during 600-800 ms. We interpreted the over-recruitment of the motor area in the L2 as a higher demand for cognitive resources to compensate for the inadequate engagement of the language network. In general, our results indicate a compensatory role of the motor cortex in L2 understanding.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lili Tian
- Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
- Centre for Interdisciplinary Brain Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
- School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
- Language and Brain Research Centre, Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, China
| | - Hongjun Chen
- School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
| | - Pyry Petteri Heikkinen
- Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
- Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Wenya Liu
- Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
| | - Tiina Parviainen
- Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
- Centre for Interdisciplinary Brain Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
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16
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Banks B, Connell L. Multi-dimensional sensorimotor grounding of concrete and abstract categories. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2023; 378:20210366. [PMID: 36571121 PMCID: PMC9791484 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0366] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Semantic categories, and the concepts belonging to them, have commonly been defined by their relative concreteness, that is, their reliance on perception. However, sensorimotor grounding must be regarded as going beyond the basic five senses and incorporate a multi-dimensional variety of perceptual and action experience. We present a series of exploratory analyses examining the sensorimotor grounding of participant-produced member concepts for 117 categories, spanning concrete (e.g. animal and furniture) and highly abstract (e.g. unit of time and science) categories. We found that both concrete and abstract categories are strongly grounded in multi-dimensional sensorimotor experience. Both domains were dominated by vision and, to a lesser extent, head movements, but concrete categories were more grounded in touch and hand-arm action, while abstract categories were more grounded in hearing and interoception. Importantly, this pattern of grounding was not uniform, and subdomains of concrete (e.g. ingestibles, animates, natural categories and artefacts) and abstract (e.g. internal, social and non-social) categories were grounded in different profiles of sensorimotor experience. Overall, these findings suggest that the distinction between abstract and concrete categories is not as clearcut as ontological assumptions might suggest, and that the strength and diversity of sensorimotor grounding in abstract categories must not be underestimated. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Briony Banks
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Fylde College, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK
| | - Louise Connell
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Fylde College, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK.,Department of Psychology, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland
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17
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Ntemou E, Svaldi C, Jonkers R, Picht T, Rofes A. Verb and sentence processing with TMS: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Cortex 2023; 162:38-55. [PMID: 36965338 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.01.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2022] [Revised: 01/19/2023] [Accepted: 01/31/2023] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has provided relevant evidence regarding the neural correlates of language. The aim of the present study is to summarize and assess previous findings regarding linguistic levels (i.e., semantic and morpho-syntactic) and brain structures utilized during verb and sentence processing. To do that, we systematically reviewed TMS research on verb and sentence processing in healthy speakers, and meta-analyzed TMS-induced effects according to the region of stimulation and experimental manipulation. Findings from 45 articles show that approximately half of the reviewed work focuses on the embodiment of action verbs. The majority of studies (60%) target only one cortical region in relation to a specific linguistic process. Frontal areas are most frequently stimulated in connection to morphosyntactic processes and action verb semantics, and temporoparietal regions in relation to integration of sentential meaning and thematic role assignment. A meta-analysis of 72 effect sizes of the reviewed papers indicates that TMS has a small overall effect size, but effect sizes for anterior compared to posterior regions do not differ for semantic or morphosyntactic contrasts. Our findings stress the need to increase the number of targeted areas, while using the same linguistic contrasts in order to disentangle the contributions of different cortical regions to distinct linguistic processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Effrosyni Ntemou
- International Doctorate for Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain (IDEALAB), University of Groningen (NL), University of Potsdam (DE), Newcastle University (UK), Macquarie University (AU), the Netherlands; Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands; Department of Neurosurgery, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Cheyenne Svaldi
- International Doctorate for Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain (IDEALAB), University of Groningen (NL), University of Potsdam (DE), Newcastle University (UK), Macquarie University (AU), the Netherlands; Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Roel Jonkers
- Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Thomas Picht
- Department of Neurosurgery, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Cluster of Excellence: "Matters of Activity. Image Space Material", Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany
| | - Adrià Rofes
- Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
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18
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Bayram M, Palluel-Germain R, Lebon F, Durand E, Harquel S, Perrone-Bertolotti M. Motor imagery training to improve language processing: What are the arguments? Front Hum Neurosci 2023; 17:982849. [PMID: 36816506 PMCID: PMC9929469 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.982849] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2022] [Accepted: 01/09/2023] [Indexed: 02/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Studies showed that motor expertise was found to induce improvement in language processing. Grounded and situated approaches attributed this effect to an underlying automatic simulation of the motor experience elicited by action words, similar to motor imagery (MI), and suggest shared representations of action conceptualization. Interestingly, recent results also suggest that the mental simulation of action by MI training induces motor-system modifications and improves motor performance. Consequently, we hypothesize that, since MI training can induce motor-system modifications, it could be used to reinforce the functional connections between motor and language system, and could thus lead to improved language performance. Here, we explore these potential interactions by reviewing recent fundamental and clinical literature in the action-language and MI domains. We suggested that exploiting the link between action language and MI could open new avenues for complementary language improvement programs. We summarize the current literature to evaluate the rationale behind this novel training and to explore the mechanisms underlying MI and its impact on language performance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mariam Bayram
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | | | - Florent Lebon
- Laboratoire INSERM U1093 Cognition, Action, et Plasticité Sensorimotrice, Université de Bourgogne, Faculté des Sciences du Sport (UFR STAPS), Dijon, France,Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), Paris, France
| | - Edith Durand
- Département d’Orthophonie, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, QC, Canada
| | - Sylvain Harquel
- Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics (CNP) and Brain Mind Institute (BMI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Marcela Perrone-Bertolotti
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France,Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), Paris, France,*Correspondence: Marcela Perrone-Bertolotti,
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19
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Xiong Z, Tian Y, Wang X, Wei K, Bi Y. Gravity matters for the neural representations of action semantics. Cereb Cortex 2023:6995384. [PMID: 36682884 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/28/2022] [Revised: 12/31/2022] [Accepted: 01/02/2023] [Indexed: 01/24/2023] Open
Abstract
The dynamic relationship between the neural representation of action word semantics and specific sensorimotor experience remains controversial. Here, we temporarily altered human subjects' sensorimotor experience in a 15-day head-down tilt bed rest setting, a ground-based analog of microgravity that disproportionally affects sensorimotor experiences of the lower limbs, and examined whether such effector-dependent activity deprivation specifically affected the neural processes of comprehending verbs of lower-limb actions (e.g. to kick) relative to upper-limb ones (e.g. to pinch). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we compared the multivoxel neural patterns for such action words prior to and after bed rest. We found an effector-specific (lower vs. upper limb) experience modulation in subcortical sensorimotor-related and anterior temporal regions. The neural action semantic representations in other effector-specific verb semantic regions (e.g. left lateral posterior temporal cortex) and motor execution regions were robust against such experience alterations. These effector-specific, sensorimotor-experience-sensitive and experience-independent patterns of verb neural representation highlight the multidimensional and dynamic nature of semantic neural representation, and the broad influence of microgravity (hence gravity) environment on cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ziyi Xiong
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.,Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
| | - Yu Tian
- National Key Laboratory of Human Factors Engineering, China Astronaut Research and Training Center, Beijing 100094, China.,School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - Xiaosha Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.,Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
| | - Kunlin Wei
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.,Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Beijing 100871, China.,Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - Yanchao Bi
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.,Beijing Key Laboratory of Brain Imaging and Connectomics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.,Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing 102206, China
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20
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Kuhnke P, Beaupain MC, Arola J, Kiefer M, Hartwigsen G. Meta-analytic evidence for a novel hierarchical model of conceptual processing. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2023; 144:104994. [PMID: 36509206 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104994] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2022] [Revised: 11/29/2022] [Accepted: 12/07/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Conceptual knowledge plays a pivotal role in human cognition. Grounded cognition theories propose that concepts consist of perceptual-motor features represented in modality-specific perceptual-motor cortices. However, it is unclear whether conceptual processing consistently engages modality-specific areas. Here, we performed an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis across 212 neuroimaging experiments on conceptual processing related to 7 perceptual-motor modalities (action, sound, visual shape, motion, color, olfaction-gustation, and emotion). We found that conceptual processing consistently engages brain regions also activated during real perceptual-motor experience of the same modalities. In addition, we identified multimodal convergence zones that are recruited for multiple modalities. In particular, the left inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) are engaged for three modalities: action, motion, and sound. These "trimodal" regions are surrounded by "bimodal" regions engaged for two modalities. Our findings support a novel model of the conceptual system, according to which conceptual processing relies on a hierarchical neural architecture from modality-specific to multimodal areas up to an amodal hub.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philipp Kuhnke
- Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany.
| | - Marie C Beaupain
- Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Department of Psychology and Neurosciences, Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, Germany
| | - Johannes Arola
- Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | | | - Gesa Hartwigsen
- Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany
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21
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Dupont W, Papaxanthis C, Lebon F, Madden-Lombardi C. Does the Motor Cortex Want the Full Story? The Influence of Sentence Context on Corticospinal Excitability in Action Language Processing. Neuroscience 2022; 506:58-67. [PMID: 36328232 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2022.10.022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2022] [Revised: 10/21/2022] [Accepted: 10/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
The reading of action verbs has been shown to activate motor areas, whereby sentence context may serve to either globally strengthen this activation or to selectively sharpen it. To investigate this issue, we manipulated the presence of manual actions and sentence context, assessing the level of corticospinal excitability by means of transcranial magnetic stimulation. We hypothesized that context would serve to sharpen the neural representation of the described actions in the motor cortex, reflected in context-specific modulation of corticospinal excitability. Participants silently read manual action verbs and non-manual verbs, preceded by a full sentence (rich context) or not (minimal context). Transcranial magnetic stimulation pulses were delivered at rest or shortly after verb presentation. The coil was positioned over the cortical representation of the right first dorsal interosseous (pointer finger). We observed a general increase of corticospinal excitability while reading both manual action and non-manual verbs in minimal context, whereas the modulation was action-specific in rich context: corticospinal excitability increased while reading manual verbs, but did not differ from baseline for non-manual verbs. These findings suggest that sentence context sharpens motor representations, activating the motor cortex when relevant and eliminating any residual motor activation when no action is present.
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Affiliation(s)
- W Dupont
- INSERM UMR1093-CAPS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, UFR des Sciences du Sport, F-21000 Dijon, France.
| | - C Papaxanthis
- INSERM UMR1093-CAPS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, UFR des Sciences du Sport, F-21000 Dijon, France
| | - F Lebon
- INSERM UMR1093-CAPS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, UFR des Sciences du Sport, F-21000 Dijon, France; Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), France
| | - C Madden-Lombardi
- INSERM UMR1093-CAPS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, UFR des Sciences du Sport, F-21000 Dijon, France; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France
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22
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Bai Y, He W. Involvement of the sensorimotor system in less advanced L2 processing: Evidence from a semantic category decision task. Front Psychol 2022; 13:980967. [DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.980967] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2022] [Accepted: 09/20/2022] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
There is increasing evidence indicating that the sensorimotor system is involved in advanced L2 processing, which raises the question of what role sensorimotor information plays in the course of less advanced L2 comprehension. In the current study, two experiments were conducted using a lexical decision task (LDT) and semantic category task (SCT). The results showed that, in the LDT, a task more likely to result in participants making judgments based on the physical properties of words (e.g., familiarity, orthography), “up” words (e.g., sun, plane) did not result in faster upward than downward responses, and “down” words (e.g., tunnel, cave) also did not result in faster downward than upward responses. In the SCT, compatibility effects were found; specifically, searching for the up target after “up” words was faster than after “down” words and searching for the bottom target after “down” words was faster than after “upward-pointing” words. Hence, we concluded that L2 sensorimotor association, at least for L2 with low proficiency, not automatic in nature and is dependent upon deeper semantic task demands.
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23
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Johari K, Riccardi N, Malyutina S, Modi M, Desai RH. HD-tDCS of primary and higher-order motor cortex affects action word processing. Front Hum Neurosci 2022; 16:959455. [PMID: 36248688 PMCID: PMC9556667 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.959455] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2022] [Accepted: 09/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
The contribution of action-perception systems of the brain to lexical semantics remains controversial. Here, we used high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) in healthy adults to examine the role of primary (left hand motor area; HMA) and higher-order (left anterior inferior parietal lobe; aIPL) action areas in action-related word processing (action verbs and manipulable nouns) compared to non-action-related control words (non-action verbs and non-manipulable nouns). We investigated stimulation-related effects at three levels of semantic processing: subliminal, implicit, and explicit. Broadly, we found that stimulation of HMA and aIPL resulted in relative facilitation of action-related language processing compared to non-action. HMA stimulation facilitated action verb processing in subliminal and implicit task contexts, suggesting that HMA helps represent action verbs even in semantically shallow tasks. HMA stimulation also facilitated manipulable noun comprehension in an explicit semantic task, suggesting that HMA contributes to manipulable noun comprehension when semantic demands are high. aIPL stimulation facilitated both manipulable noun and action verb processing during an implicit task. We suggest that both HMA and aIPL play a functional role in action semantics. HMA plays a general role in the semantics of actions and manipulable objects, while aIPL is important only when visuo-motor coordination is required for the action.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karim Johari
- Human Neurophysiology & Neuromodulation Lab, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, United States
| | - Nicholas Riccardi
- Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, United States
| | | | - Mirage Modi
- Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States
| | - Rutvik H. Desai
- Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, United States
- Institute for Mind and Brain, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, United States
- *Correspondence: Rutvik H. Desai
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24
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Shebani Z, Carota F, Hauk O, Rowe JB, Barsalou LW, Tomasello R, Pulvermüller F. Brain correlates of action word memory revealed by fMRI. Sci Rep 2022; 12:16053. [PMID: 36163225 PMCID: PMC9512810 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-19416-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2021] [Accepted: 08/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Understanding language semantically related to actions activates the motor cortex. This activation is sensitive to semantic information such as the body part used to perform the action (e.g. arm-/leg-related action words). Additionally, motor movements of the hands/feet can have a causal effect on memory maintenance of action words, suggesting that the involvement of motor systems extends to working memory. This study examined brain correlates of verbal memory load for action-related words using event-related fMRI. Seventeen participants saw either four identical or four different words from the same category (arm-/leg-related action words) then performed a nonmatching-to-sample task. Results show that verbal memory maintenance in the high-load condition produced greater activation in left premotor and supplementary motor cortex, along with posterior-parietal areas, indicating that verbal memory circuits for action-related words include the cortical action system. Somatotopic memory load effects of arm- and leg-related words were observed, but only at more anterior cortical regions than was found in earlier studies employing passive reading tasks. These findings support a neurocomputational model of distributed action-perception circuits (APCs), according to which language understanding is manifest as full ignition of APCs, whereas working memory is realized as reverberant activity receding to multimodal prefrontal and lateral temporal areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zubaida Shebani
- Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK. .,Psychology Department, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman.
| | - Francesca Carota
- Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK.,Max-Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.,Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195, Berlin, Germany.,Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Olaf Hauk
- Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK
| | - James B Rowe
- Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK.,Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, Cambridge University, Cambridge, CB2 2QQ, UK
| | - Lawrence W Barsalou
- Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
| | - Rosario Tomasello
- Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195, Berlin, Germany.,Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.,Cluster of Excellence 'Matters of Activity. Image Space Material', Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 10099, Berlin, Germany
| | - Friedemann Pulvermüller
- Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK.,Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195, Berlin, Germany.,Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.,Cluster of Excellence 'Matters of Activity. Image Space Material', Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 10099, Berlin, Germany
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Tomeh A, Yusof Khan AHK, Wan Sulaiman WA. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the primary motor cortex in stroke survivors-more than motor rehabilitation: A mini-review. Front Aging Neurosci 2022; 14:897837. [PMID: 36225893 PMCID: PMC9549351 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.897837] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2022] [Accepted: 09/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Stroke is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among elderly populations worldwide. During the early phase of stroke, restoring blood circulation is of utmost importance to protect neurons from further injury. Once the initial condition is stabilized, various rehabilitation techniques can be applied to help stroke survivors gradually regain their affected functions. Among these techniques, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has emerged as a novel method to assess and modulate cortical excitability non-invasively and aid stroke survivors in the rehabilitation process. Different cortical regions have been targeted using TMS based on the underlying pathology and distorted function. Despite the lack of a standard operational procedure, repetitive TMS (rTMS) of the primary motor cortex (M1) is considered a promising intervention for post-stroke motor rehabilitation. However, apart from the motor response, mounting evidence suggests that M1 stimulation can be employed to treat other symptoms such as dysphagia, speech impairments, central post-stroke pain, depression, and cognitive dysfunction. In this mini-review, we summarize the therapeutic uses of rTMS stimulation over M1 in stroke survivors and discuss the potential mechanistic rationale behind it.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abdulhameed Tomeh
- Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
| | - Abdul Hanif Khan Yusof Khan
- Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
- Malaysian Research Institute on Ageing (MyAgeing™), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
| | - Wan Aliaa Wan Sulaiman
- Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
- Malaysian Research Institute on Ageing (MyAgeing™), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
- *Correspondence: Wan Aliaa Wan Sulaiman,
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Li X, Luo D, Wang C, Xia Y, Jin H. Motor features of abstract verbs determine their representations in the motor system. Front Psychol 2022; 13:957426. [PMID: 36110272 PMCID: PMC9469731 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.957426] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2022] [Accepted: 07/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Embodied cognition theory posits that concept representations inherently rely on sensorimotor experiences that accompany their acquisitions. This is well established through concrete concepts. However, it is debatable whether representations of abstract concepts are based on sensorimotor representations. This study investigated the causal role of associated motor experiences that accompany concept acquisition in the involvement of the motor system in the abstract verb processing. Through two experiments, we examined the action–sentence compatibility effect, in the test phase after an increase in motor features during the learning phase for abstract verbs with low motor features (Experiment 1) or novel words with no conceptual features at all (Experiment 2). After associated motor experiences were added in the word learning phase, action–sentence compatibility effect was found in the semantic processing tasks during the test phase for abstract verbs (Experiment 1a) and novel words (Experiment 2). This was lacking in the word font color judgment task requiring no semantic processing (Experiment 1b). Coupled with our previous study, these findings suggest that motor features formed during word learning could causally affect embodiment in the motor system for abstract verbs, and reactivation of motor experiences in abstract verb processing depends on a given task’s demands. Our study supports the view that conceptual representations, even abstract concepts, can be grounded in sensorimotor experiences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiang Li
- Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
- Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
- Department of Psychology, Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China
| | - Dan Luo
- Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
- Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
- Faculty of Education, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, China
| | - Chao Wang
- Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
- Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
| | - Yaoyuan Xia
- Department of Physical Education, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou, China
| | - Hua Jin
- Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
- Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
- *Correspondence: Hua Jin,
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Does the involvement of motor cortex in embodied language comprehension stand on solid ground? A p-curve analysis and test for excess significance of the TMS and tDCS evidence. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2022; 141:104834. [PMID: 36037977 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104834] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2022] [Revised: 08/08/2022] [Accepted: 08/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
According to the embodied cognition view, comprehending action-related language requires the participation of sensorimotor processes. A now sizeable literature has tested this proposal by stimulating (with TMS or tDCS) motor brain areas during the comprehension of action language. To assess the evidential value of this body of research, we exhaustively searched the literature and submitted the relevant studies (N = 43) to p-curve analysis. While most published studies concluded in support of the embodiment hypothesis, our results suggest that we cannot yet assert beyond reasonable doubt that they explore real effects. We also found that these studies are quite underpowered (estimated power < 30%), which means that a large percentage of them would not replicate if repeated identically. Additional tests for excess significance show signs of publication bias within this literature. In sum, extant brain stimulation studies testing the grounding of action language in the motor cortex do not stand on solid ground. We provide recommendations that will be important for future research on this topic.
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Wang Y, Ji Q, Zhou C, Wang Y. Brain mechanisms linking language processing and open motor skill training. Front Hum Neurosci 2022; 16:911894. [PMID: 35992938 PMCID: PMC9386041 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.911894] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2022] [Accepted: 07/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Given the discovery of a distributed language and motor functional network, surprisingly few studies have explored whether language processing is related to motor skill training. To address this issue, the present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare whole-brain activation between nonexperts and experts in table tennis, an open skill sport in which players make rapid decisions in response to an ever-changing environment. Whole-brain activation was assessed in 30 expert table tennis players with more than 7 years’ experience and 35 age-matched nonexpert college students while they performed both a size and a semantic judgment task of words presented on a monitor. Compared with nonexperts, expert table tennis players showed greater activation in the left middle occipital gyrus and right precuneus while judging the size of the words versus during baseline fixation. They also showed greater activation in the left lingual gyrus during the semantic judgment task versus during baseline fixation. Our findings indicate that the visual regions engaged in language processing are associated with open motor skill training.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yixuan Wang
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China
| | - Qingchun Ji
- Department of Physical Education, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, China
| | - Chenglin Zhou
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China
| | - Yingying Wang
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China
- *Correspondence: Yingying Wang,
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Tomeh A, Yusof Khan AHK, Inche Mat LN, Basri H, Wan Sulaiman WA. Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of the Primary Motor Cortex beyond Motor Rehabilitation: A Review of the Current Evidence. Brain Sci 2022; 12:brainsci12060761. [PMID: 35741646 PMCID: PMC9221422 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12060761] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2022] [Revised: 06/01/2022] [Accepted: 06/02/2022] [Indexed: 02/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has emerged as a novel technique to stimulate the human brain through the scalp. Over the years, identifying the optimal brain region and stimulation parameters has been a subject of debate in the literature on therapeutic uses of repetitive TMS (rTMS). Nevertheless, the primary motor cortex (M1) has been a conventional target for rTMS to treat motor symptoms, such as hemiplegia and spasticity, as it controls the voluntary movement of the body. However, with an expanding knowledge base of the M1 cortical and subcortical connections, M1-rTMS has shown a therapeutic efficacy that goes beyond the conventional motor rehabilitation to involve pain, headache, fatigue, dysphagia, speech and voice impairments, sleep disorders, cognitive dysfunction, disorders of consciousness, anxiety, depression, and bladder dysfunction. In this review, we summarize the latest evidence on using M1-rTMS to treat non-motor symptoms of diverse etiologies and discuss the potential mechanistic rationale behind the management of each of these symptoms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abdulhameed Tomeh
- Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia; (A.T.); (A.H.K.Y.K.); (L.N.I.M.); (H.B.)
| | - Abdul Hanif Khan Yusof Khan
- Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia; (A.T.); (A.H.K.Y.K.); (L.N.I.M.); (H.B.)
- Malaysian Research Institute on Ageing (MyAgeingTM), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
| | - Liyana Najwa Inche Mat
- Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia; (A.T.); (A.H.K.Y.K.); (L.N.I.M.); (H.B.)
| | - Hamidon Basri
- Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia; (A.T.); (A.H.K.Y.K.); (L.N.I.M.); (H.B.)
| | - Wan Aliaa Wan Sulaiman
- Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia; (A.T.); (A.H.K.Y.K.); (L.N.I.M.); (H.B.)
- Malaysian Research Institute on Ageing (MyAgeingTM), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +60-3-9769-5560
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Montero-Melis G, van Paridon J, Ostarek M, Bylund E. No evidence for embodiment: The motor system is not needed to keep action verbs in working memory. Cortex 2022; 150:108-125. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.02.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/03/2021] [Revised: 02/27/2022] [Accepted: 02/28/2022] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
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Motor Cortex Causally Contributes to Vocabulary Translation following Sensorimotor-Enriched Training. J Neurosci 2021; 41:8618-8631. [PMID: 34429380 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2249-20.2021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/25/2020] [Revised: 07/19/2021] [Accepted: 07/20/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
The role of the motor cortex in perceptual and cognitive functions is highly controversial. Here, we investigated the hypothesis that the motor cortex can be instrumental for translating foreign language vocabulary. Human participants of both sexes were trained on foreign language (L2) words and their native language translations over 4 consecutive days. L2 words were accompanied by complementary gestures (sensorimotor enrichment) or pictures (sensory enrichment). Following training, participants translated the auditorily presented L2 words that they had learned. During translation, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied bilaterally to a site within the primary motor cortex (Brodmann area 4) located in the vicinity of the arm functional compartment. Responses within the stimulated motor region have previously been found to correlate with behavioral benefits of sensorimotor-enriched L2 vocabulary learning. Compared to sham stimulation, effective perturbation by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation slowed down the translation of sensorimotor-enriched L2 words, but not sensory-enriched L2 words. This finding suggests that sensorimotor-enriched training induced changes in L2 representations within the motor cortex, which in turn facilitated the translation of L2 words. The motor cortex may play a causal role in precipitating sensorimotor-based learning benefits, and may directly aid in remembering the native language translations of foreign language words following sensorimotor-enriched training. These findings support multisensory theories of learning while challenging reactivation-based theories.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Despite the potential for sensorimotor enrichment to serve as a powerful tool for learning in many domains, its underlying brain mechanisms remain largely unexplored. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation and a foreign language (L2) learning paradigm, we found that sensorimotor-enriched training can induce changes in L2 representations within the motor cortex, which in turn causally facilitate the translation of L2 words. The translation of recently acquired L2 words may therefore rely not only on auditory information stored in memory or on modality-independent L2 representations, but also on the sensorimotor context in which the words have been experienced.
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Wang Y, Ji Q, Fu R, Zhang G, Lu Y, Zhou C. Hand-related action words impair action anticipation in expert table tennis players: Behavioral and neural evidence. Psychophysiology 2021; 59:e13942. [PMID: 34535903 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13942] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2021] [Revised: 07/15/2021] [Accepted: 09/02/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Athletes extract kinematic information to anticipate action outcomes. Here, we examined the influence of linguistic information (experiment 1, 2) and its underlying neural correlates (experiment 2) on anticipatory judgment. Table tennis experts and novices remembered a hand- or leg-related verb or a spatial location while predicting the trajectory of a ball in a video occluded at the moment of the serve. Experiment 1 showed that predictions by experts were more accurate than novices, but experts' accuracy significantly decreased when hand-related words versus spatial locations were memorized. For nonoccluded videos with ball trajectories congruent or incongruent with server actions in experiment 2, remembering hand-related verbs shared cognitive resources with action anticipation only in experts, with heightened processing load (increased P3 amplitude) and more efficient conflict monitoring (decreased N2 amplitude) versus leg-related verbs. Thus, action anticipation required updating of motor representations facilitated by motor expertize but was also affected by effector-specific semantic representations of actions, suggesting a link from language to motor systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yingying Wang
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China
| | - Qingchun Ji
- Physical Education Department, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, China
| | - Rao Fu
- Faculty of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, School of Biomedical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
| | - Guanghui Zhang
- Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
| | - Yingzhi Lu
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China
| | - Chenglin Zhou
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China
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Johari K, Riccardi N, Malyutina S, Modi M, Desai RH. HD-tDCS over motor cortex facilitates figurative and literal action sentence processing. Neuropsychologia 2021; 159:107955. [PMID: 34252418 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107955] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2020] [Revised: 07/06/2021] [Accepted: 07/06/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
The extent to which action and perception systems of the brain are involved in semantic comprehension remains controversial. Whether figurative language, such as metaphors and idioms, is grounded in sensory-motor systems is especially contentious. Here, we used high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) in healthy adults to examine the role of the left-hemisphere motor cortex during the comprehension of action sentences, relative to comprehension of sentences with visual verbs. Action sentences were divided into three types: literal, metaphoric, or idiomatic. This allowed us to ask whether processing of action verbs used in figurative contexts relies on motor cortex. The results revealed that action sentence comprehension response times were facilitated relative to the visual sentence control. Significant interaction relative to visual sentences was observed for literal, metaphoric, and idiomatic action sentences with HD-tDCS of the motor cortex. These results suggest that the left motor cortex is functionally involved in action sentence comprehension. Furthermore, this involvement exists when the action content of the sentences is figurative, for both idiomatic and metaphoric cases. The results provide evidence for functional links between conceptual and action systems of the brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karim Johari
- Human Brain Mapping Laboratory, Department of Neurosurgery, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
| | - Nicholas Riccardi
- Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
| | | | - Mirage Modi
- Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
| | - Rutvik H Desai
- Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA; Institute for Mind and Brain, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA.
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Suárez-García DMA, Birba A, Zimerman M, Diazgranados JA, Lopes da Cunha P, Ibáñez A, Grisales-Cárdenas JS, Cardona JF, García AM. Rekindling Action Language: A Neuromodulatory Study on Parkinson's Disease Patients. Brain Sci 2021; 11:887. [PMID: 34356122 PMCID: PMC8301982 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11070887] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2021] [Accepted: 06/25/2021] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Impairments of action semantics (a cognitive domain that critically engages motor brain networks) are pervasive in early Parkinson's disease (PD). However, no study has examined whether action semantic skills in persons with this disease can be influenced by non-invasive neuromodulation. Here, we recruited 22 PD patients and performed a five-day randomized, blinded, sham-controlled study to assess whether anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (atDCS) over the primary motor cortex, combined with cognitive training, can boost action-concept processing. On day 1, participants completed a picture-word association (PWA) task involving action-verb and object-noun conditions. They were then randomly assigned to either an atDCS (n = 11, 2 mA for 20 m) or a sham tDCS (n = 11, 2 mA for 30 s) group and performed an online PWA practice over three days. On day 5, they repeated the initial protocol. Relative to sham tDCS, the atDCS group exhibited faster reaction times for action (as opposed to object) concepts in the post-stimulation test. This result was exclusive to the atDCS group and held irrespective of the subjects' cognitive, executive, and motor skills, further attesting to its specificity. Our findings suggest that action-concept deficits in PD are distinctively grounded in motor networks and might be countered by direct neuromodulation of such circuits. Moreover, they provide new evidence for neurosemantic models and inform a thriving agenda in the embodied cognition framework.
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Affiliation(s)
- Diana M. A. Suárez-García
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad del Valle, Santiago de Cali 76001, Colombia; (D.M.A.S.-G.); (J.S.G.-C.)
| | - Agustina Birba
- Cognitive Neuroscience Center (CNC), Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires B1644BID, Argentina; (A.B.); (M.Z.); (P.L.d.C.); (A.I.)
- National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires C1033AAJ, Argentina
| | - Máximo Zimerman
- Cognitive Neuroscience Center (CNC), Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires B1644BID, Argentina; (A.B.); (M.Z.); (P.L.d.C.); (A.I.)
| | - Jesús A. Diazgranados
- Centro Médico de Atención Neurológica “Neurólogos de Occidente”, Santiago de Cali 76001, Colombia;
| | - Pamela Lopes da Cunha
- Cognitive Neuroscience Center (CNC), Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires B1644BID, Argentina; (A.B.); (M.Z.); (P.L.d.C.); (A.I.)
- Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (ANPCyT), Buenos Aires C1425FQD, Argentina
| | - Agustín Ibáñez
- Cognitive Neuroscience Center (CNC), Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires B1644BID, Argentina; (A.B.); (M.Z.); (P.L.d.C.); (A.I.)
- National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires C1033AAJ, Argentina
- Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), University of California San Francisco (UCSF), San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
- Trinity College Dublin (TCD), D02R590 Dublin 2, Ireland
- Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago 8320000, Chile
| | - Johan S. Grisales-Cárdenas
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad del Valle, Santiago de Cali 76001, Colombia; (D.M.A.S.-G.); (J.S.G.-C.)
| | - Juan Felipe Cardona
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad del Valle, Santiago de Cali 76001, Colombia; (D.M.A.S.-G.); (J.S.G.-C.)
| | - Adolfo M. García
- Cognitive Neuroscience Center (CNC), Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires B1644BID, Argentina; (A.B.); (M.Z.); (P.L.d.C.); (A.I.)
- National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires C1033AAJ, Argentina
- Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), University of California San Francisco (UCSF), San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
- Trinity College Dublin (TCD), D02R590 Dublin 2, Ireland
- Faculty of Education, National University of Cuyo (UNCuyo), Mendoza M5502GKA, Argentina
- Departamento de Lingüística y Literatura, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago 9170020, Chile
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Salas-Herrera JL, Urrutia Martínez M, Melipillan Araneda R, Veliz De Vos M. Comprensión de oraciones de esfuerzo en jóvenes y adultos mayores desde una perspectiva corpórea. UNIVERSITAS PSYCHOLOGICA 2021. [DOI: 10.11144/javeriana.upsy19.coej] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Actualmente se desconoce la validez de las propuestas de la cognición corpórea y su relación con el lenguaje de los adultos mayores. Para responder a esto realizamos un experimento con los factores Esfuerzo, Imaginabilidad y Contexto Lingüístico. 50 adultos mayores (M= 66.18 años, DE= 4.39, 22 mujeres y 28 hombres) y 43 jóvenes (M= 21.28 años, DE= 1.08, 36 mujeres y 7 hombres) leyeron oraciones en la pantalla de un computador, presionando la barra espaciadora para decidir luego si una palabra se hallaba o no en la frase recién leída. Los resultados muestran efectos principales para los factores Imaginabilidad (β = 0.309; p < 0.05) y Contexto (β = -0.856; p < 0.001) en los tiempos de lectura del objeto directo, dos efectos de interacción Imaginabilidad-Esfuerzo (β = -0.732; p < 0.01) e Imaginabilidad-Contexto (β = 0.611; p < 0.05) para el complemento circunstancial y un efecto interactivo Imaginabilidad-Contexto (β = 0.727; p < 0.05) para la palabra de activación. Los resultados respaldan una visión de corporeidad débil con integración interactiva de las propiedades corpóreas y simbólicas de los textos. Es necesario ampliar la investigación a otros parámetros corpóreos, edades y lenguas para contrastar estos resultados.
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Vukovic N, Hansen B, Lund TE, Jespersen S, Shtyrov Y. Rapid microstructural plasticity in the cortical semantic network following a short language learning session. PLoS Biol 2021; 19:e3001290. [PMID: 34125828 PMCID: PMC8202930 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001290] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2020] [Accepted: 05/17/2021] [Indexed: 01/22/2023] Open
Abstract
Despite the clear importance of language in our life, our vital ability to quickly and effectively learn new words and meanings is neurobiologically poorly understood. Conventional knowledge maintains that language learning—especially in adulthood—is slow and laborious. Furthermore, its structural basis remains unclear. Even though behavioural manifestations of learning are evident near instantly, previous neuroimaging work across a range of semantic categories has largely studied neural changes associated with months or years of practice. Here, we address rapid neuroanatomical plasticity accompanying new lexicon acquisition, specifically focussing on the learning of action-related language, which has been linked to the brain’s motor systems. Our results show that it is possible to measure and to externally modulate (using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of motor cortex) cortical microanatomic reorganisation after mere minutes of new word learning. Learning-induced microstructural changes, as measured by diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) and machine learning-based analysis, were evident in prefrontal, temporal, and parietal neocortical sites, likely reflecting integrative lexico-semantic processing and formation of new memory circuits immediately during the learning tasks. These results suggest a structural basis for the rapid neocortical word encoding mechanism and reveal the causally interactive relationship of modal and associative brain regions in supporting learning and word acquisition. This combined neuroimaging and brain stimulation study reveals rapid and distributed microstructural plasticity after a single immersive language learning session, demonstrating the causal relevance of the motor cortex in encoding the meaning of novel action words.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nikola Vukovic
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Brian Hansen
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | | | - Sune Jespersen
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Yury Shtyrov
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
- Centre for Cognition and Decision making, HSE University, Moscow, Russia
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Kuhnke P, Kiefer M, Hartwigsen G. Task-Dependent Functional and Effective Connectivity during Conceptual Processing. Cereb Cortex 2021; 31:3475-3493. [PMID: 33677479 PMCID: PMC8196308 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2020] [Revised: 01/21/2021] [Accepted: 01/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Conceptual knowledge is central to cognition. Previous neuroimaging research indicates that conceptual processing involves both modality-specific perceptual-motor areas and multimodal convergence zones. For example, our previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study revealed that both modality-specific and multimodal regions respond to sound and action features of concepts in a task-dependent fashion (Kuhnke P, Kiefer M, Hartwigsen G. 2020b. Task-dependent recruitment of modality-specific and multimodal regions during conceptual processing. Cereb Cortex. 30:3938–3959.). However, it remains unknown whether and how modality-specific and multimodal areas interact during conceptual tasks. Here, we asked 1) whether multimodal and modality-specific areas are functionally coupled during conceptual processing, 2) whether their coupling depends on the task, 3) whether information flows top-down, bottom-up or both, and 4) whether their coupling is behaviorally relevant. We combined psychophysiological interaction analyses with dynamic causal modeling on the fMRI data of our previous study. We found that functional coupling between multimodal and modality-specific areas strongly depended on the task, involved both top-down and bottom-up information flow, and predicted conceptually guided behavior. Notably, we also found coupling between different modality-specific areas and between different multimodal areas. These results suggest that functional coupling in the conceptual system is extensive, reciprocal, task-dependent, and behaviorally relevant. We propose a new model of the conceptual system that incorporates task-dependent functional interactions between modality-specific and multimodal areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philipp Kuhnke
- Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
| | - Markus Kiefer
- Department of Psychiatry, Ulm University, Ulm 89081, Germany
| | - Gesa Hartwigsen
- Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
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Vansteensel MJ, Selten IS, Charbonnier L, Berezutskaya J, Raemaekers MAH, Ramsey NF, Wijnen F. Reduced brain activation during spoken language processing in children with developmental language disorder and children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. Neuropsychologia 2021; 158:107907. [PMID: 34058175 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107907] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2020] [Revised: 05/19/2021] [Accepted: 05/19/2021] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
Language difficulties of children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have been associated with multiple underlying factors and are still poorly understood. One way of investigating the mechanisms of DLD language problems is to compare language-related brain activation patterns of children with DLD to those of a population with similar language difficulties and a uniform etiology. Children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) constitute such a population. Here, we conducted an fMRI study, in which children (6-10yo) with DLD and 22q11DS listened to speech alternated with reversed speech. We compared language laterality and language-related brain activation levels with those of typically developing (TD) children who performed the same task. The data revealed no significant differences between groups in language lateralization, but task-related activation levels were lower in children with language impairment than in TD children in several nodes of the language network. We conclude that language impairment in children with DLD and in children with 22q11DS may involve (partially) overlapping cortical areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mariska J Vansteensel
- UMC Utrecht Brain Center, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
| | - Iris S Selten
- Utrecht Institute of Linguistics (UIL-OTS), Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Lisette Charbonnier
- UMC Utrecht Brain Center, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Julia Berezutskaya
- UMC Utrecht Brain Center, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Mathijs A H Raemaekers
- UMC Utrecht Brain Center, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Nick F Ramsey
- UMC Utrecht Brain Center, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Frank Wijnen
- Utrecht Institute of Linguistics (UIL-OTS), Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
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Papitto G, Lugli L, Borghi AM, Pellicano A, Binkofski F. Embodied negation and levels of concreteness: A TMS study on German and Italian language processing. Brain Res 2021; 1767:147523. [PMID: 34010607 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2021.147523] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2021] [Revised: 04/23/2021] [Accepted: 05/15/2021] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
According to the embodied cognition perspective, linguistic negation may block the motor simulations induced by language processing. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to the left primary motor cortex (hand area) of monolingual Italian and German healthy participants during a rapid serial visual presentation of sentences from their own language. In these languages, the negative particle is located at the beginning and at the end of the sentence, respectively. The study investigated whether the interruption of the motor simulation processes, accounted for by reduced motor evoked potentials (MEPs), takes place similarly in two languages differing on the position of the negative marker. Different levels of sentence concreteness were also manipulated to investigate if negation exerts generalized effects or if it is affected by the semantic features of the sentence. Our findings indicate that negation acts as a block on motor representations, but independently from the language and words concreteness level.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giorgio Papitto
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Department of Neuropsychology, Leipzig, Germany; International Max Planck Research School on Neuroscience of Communication: Function, Structure, and Plasticity, Leipzig, Germany.
| | - Luisa Lugli
- Department of Philosophy and Communication, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Anna M Borghi
- Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Rome, Italy
| | - Antonello Pellicano
- Division of Clinical Cognitive Sciences, Department of Neurology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
| | - Ferdinand Binkofski
- Division of Clinical Cognitive Sciences, Department of Neurology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4), Research Center Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany
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40
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Togato G, Andras F, Miralles E, Macizo P. Motor processing modulates word comprehension. Br J Psychol 2021; 112:1028-1052. [PMID: 33914904 DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12507] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2020] [Revised: 04/05/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
We evaluated whether movement modulates the semantic processing of words. To this end, we used homograph words with two meanings, one associated with hand movements (e.g., 'abanico', 'fan' in Spanish) or foot movements ('bota', 'boot' in Spanish), and the other not associated with movement ('abanico', 'range' in Spanish; 'bota', 'wineskin' in Spanish). After the homograph, three words were presented, and participants were asked to choose the word related to one of the two homograph meanings. The words could be either related to the motor meaning of the homograph ('fan-heat'), to the non-motor meaning of the homograph ('range-possibility') or unrelated ('fan-phone'). The task was performed without movement (simple condition) or by performing hand (Experiment 1) and foot (Experiment 2) movements. Compared with the simple condition, the performance of movement oriented the preference towards the motor meaning of the homograph. This pattern of results confirms that movement modulates word comprehension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giulia Togato
- RGRLL Department, California State University Long Beach, California, USA
| | - Filip Andras
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), Granada, Spain.,University of Granada, Spain
| | - Elvira Miralles
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), Granada, Spain
| | - Pedro Macizo
- Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), Granada, Spain.,University of Granada, Spain
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Davis CP, Yee E. Building semantic memory from embodied and distributional language experience. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2021; 12:e1555. [PMID: 33533205 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1555] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2020] [Revised: 09/07/2020] [Accepted: 01/10/2021] [Indexed: 01/06/2023]
Abstract
Humans seamlessly make sense of a rapidly changing environment, using a seemingly limitless knowledgebase to recognize and adapt to most situations we encounter. This knowledgebase is called semantic memory. Embodied cognition theories suggest that we represent this knowledge through simulation: understanding the meaning of coffee entails reinstantiating the neural states involved in touching, smelling, seeing, and drinking coffee. Distributional semantic theories suggest that we are sensitive to statistical regularities in natural language, and that a cognitive mechanism picks up on these regularities and transforms them into usable semantic representations reflecting the contextual usage of language. These appear to present contrasting views on semantic memory, but do they? Recent years have seen a push toward combining these approaches under a common framework. These hybrid approaches augment our understanding of semantic memory in important ways, but current versions remain unsatisfactory in part because they treat sensory-perceptual and distributional-linguistic data as interacting but distinct types of data that must be combined. We synthesize several approaches which, taken together, suggest that linguistic and embodied experience should instead be considered as inseparably entangled: just as sensory and perceptual systems are reactivated to understand meaning, so are experience-based representations endemic to linguistic processing; further, sensory-perceptual experience is susceptible to the same distributional principles as language experience. This conclusion produces a characterization of semantic memory that accounts for the interdependencies between linguistic and embodied data that arise across multiple timescales, giving rise to concept representations that reflect our shared and unique experiences. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Language Neuroscience > Cognition Linguistics > Language in Mind and Brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Charles P Davis
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA.,Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA
| | - Eiling Yee
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA.,Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA
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Kurmakaeva D, Blagovechtchenski E, Gnedykh D, Mkrtychian N, Kostromina S, Shtyrov Y. Acquisition of concrete and abstract words is modulated by tDCS of Wernicke's area. Sci Rep 2021; 11:1508. [PMID: 33452288 PMCID: PMC7811021 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-79967-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/16/2020] [Accepted: 12/14/2020] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous behavioural and neuroimaging research suggested distinct cortical systems involved in processing abstract and concrete semantics; however, there is a dearth of causal evidence to support this. To address this, we applied anodal, cathodal, or sham (placebo) tDCS over Wernicke’s area before a session of contextual learning of novel concrete and abstract words (n = 10 each), presented five times in short stories. Learning effects were assessed at lexical and semantic levels immediately after the training and, to attest any consolidation effects of overnight sleep, on the next day. We observed successful learning of all items immediately after the session, with decreased performance in Day 2 assessment. Importantly, the results differed between stimulation conditions and tasks. Whereas the accuracy of semantic judgement for abstract words was significantly lower in the sham and anodal groups on Day 2 vs. Day 1, no significant performance drop was observed in the cathodal group. Similarly, the cathodal group showed no significant overnight performance reduction in the free recall task for either of the stimuli, unlike the other two groups. Furthermore, between-group analysis showed an overall better performance of both tDCS groups over the sham group, particularly expressed for abstract semantics and cathodal stimulation. In sum, the results suggest overlapping but diverging brain mechanisms for concrete and abstract semantics and indicate a larger degree of involvement of core language areas in storing abstract knowledge. Furthermore, they demonstrate a possiblity to improve learning outcomes using neuromodulatory techniques.
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Affiliation(s)
- Diana Kurmakaeva
- Laboratory of Behavioural Neurodynamics, Saint Petersburg University, Saint Petersburg, 199004, Russian Federation.
| | - Evgeny Blagovechtchenski
- Laboratory of Behavioural Neurodynamics, Saint Petersburg University, Saint Petersburg, 199004, Russian Federation
| | - Daria Gnedykh
- Laboratory of Behavioural Neurodynamics, Saint Petersburg University, Saint Petersburg, 199004, Russian Federation
| | - Nadezhda Mkrtychian
- Laboratory of Behavioural Neurodynamics, Saint Petersburg University, Saint Petersburg, 199004, Russian Federation
| | - Svetlana Kostromina
- Laboratory of Behavioural Neurodynamics, Saint Petersburg University, Saint Petersburg, 199004, Russian Federation
| | - Yury Shtyrov
- Laboratory of Behavioural Neurodynamics, Saint Petersburg University, Saint Petersburg, 199004, Russian Federation.,Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, 8000, Aarhus, Denmark
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Abstract
A central question in the cognitive sciences is which role embodiment plays for high-level cognitive functions, such as conceptual processing. Here, we propose that one reason why progress regarding this question has been slow is a lacking focus on what Platt (1964) called “strong inference”. Strong inference is possible when results from an experimental paradigm are not merely consistent with a hypothesis, but they provide decisive evidence for one particular hypothesis compared to competing hypotheses. We discuss how causal paradigms, which test the functional relevance of sensory-motor processes for high-level cognitive functions, can move the field forward. In particular, we explore how congenital sensory-motor disorders, acquired sensory-motor deficits, and interference paradigms with healthy participants can be utilized as an opportunity to better understand the role of sensory experience in conceptual processing. Whereas all three approaches can bring about valuable insights, we highlight that the study of congenitally and acquired sensorimotor disorders is particularly effective in the case of conceptual domains with strong unimodal basis (e.g., colors), whereas interference paradigms with healthy participants have a broader application, avoid many of the practical and interpretational limitations of patient studies, and allow a systematic and step-wise progressive inference approach to causal mechanisms.
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Mathias B, Sureth L, Hartwigsen G, Macedonia M, Mayer KM, von Kriegstein K. Visual Sensory Cortices Causally Contribute to Auditory Word Recognition Following Sensorimotor-Enriched Vocabulary Training. Cereb Cortex 2021; 31:513-528. [PMID: 32959878 PMCID: PMC7727387 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa240] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/08/2020] [Revised: 08/04/2020] [Accepted: 08/04/2020] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite a rise in the use of "learning by doing" pedagogical methods in praxis, little is known as to how the brain benefits from these methods. Learning by doing strategies that utilize complementary information ("enrichment") such as gestures have been shown to optimize learning outcomes in several domains including foreign language (L2) training. Here we tested the hypothesis that behavioral benefits of gesture-based enrichment are critically supported by integrity of the biological motion visual cortices (bmSTS). Prior functional neuroimaging work has implicated the visual motion cortices in L2 translation following sensorimotor-enriched training; the current study is the first to investigate the causal relevance of these structures in learning by doing contexts. Using neuronavigated transcranial magnetic stimulation and a gesture-enriched L2 vocabulary learning paradigm, we found that the bmSTS causally contributed to behavioral benefits of gesture-enriched learning. Visual motion cortex integrity benefitted both short- and long-term learning outcomes, as well as the learning of concrete and abstract words. These results adjudicate between opposing predictions of two neuroscientific learning theories: While reactivation-based theories predict no functional role of specialized sensory cortices in vocabulary learning outcomes, the current study supports the predictive coding theory view that these cortices precipitate sensorimotor-based learning benefits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian Mathias
- Chair of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Technical University Dresden, Dresden 01187, Germany
- Research Group Neural Mechanisms of Human Communication, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Leona Sureth
- Research Group Neural Mechanisms of Human Communication, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Gesa Hartwigsen
- Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Manuela Macedonia
- Research Group Neural Mechanisms of Human Communication, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
- Institute for Information Engineering, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, Austria
| | - Katja M Mayer
- Institute of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Katharina von Kriegstein
- Chair of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Technical University Dresden, Dresden 01187, Germany
- Research Group Neural Mechanisms of Human Communication, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
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Vigliocco G, Krason A, Stoll H, Monti A, Buxbaum LJ. Multimodal comprehension in left hemisphere stroke patients. Cortex 2020; 133:309-327. [PMID: 33161278 PMCID: PMC8105917 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.09.025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/22/2019] [Revised: 08/10/2020] [Accepted: 09/22/2020] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
Hand gestures, imagistically related to the content of speech, are ubiquitous in face-to-face communication. Here we investigated people with aphasia's (PWA) processing of speech accompanied by gestures using lesion-symptom mapping. Twenty-nine PWA and 15 matched controls were shown a picture of an object/action and then a video-clip of a speaker producing speech and/or gestures in one of the following combinations: speech-only, gesture-only, congruent speech-gesture, and incongruent speech-gesture. Participants' task was to indicate, in different blocks, whether the picture and the word matched (speech task), or whether the picture and the gesture matched (gesture task). Multivariate lesion analysis with Support Vector Regression Lesion-Symptom Mapping (SVR-LSM) showed that benefit for congruent speech-gesture was associated with 1) lesioned voxels in anterior fronto-temporal regions including inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and sparing of posterior temporal cortex and lateral temporal-occipital regions (pTC/LTO) for the speech task, and 2) conversely, lesions to pTC/LTO and sparing of anterior regions for the gesture task. The two tasks did not share overlapping voxels. Costs from incongruent speech-gesture pairings were associated with lesioned voxels in these same anterior (for the speech task) and posterior (for the gesture task) regions, but crucially, also shared voxels in superior temporal gyrus (STG) and middle temporal gyrus (MTG), including the anterior temporal lobe. These results suggest that IFG and pTC/LTO contribute to extracting semantic information from speech and gesture, respectively; however, they are not causally involved in integrating information from the two modalities. In contrast, regions in anterior STG/MTG are associated with performance in both tasks and may thus be critical to speech-gesture integration. These conclusions are further supported by associations between performance in the experimental tasks and performance in tests assessing lexical-semantic processing and gesture recognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabriella Vigliocco
- Experimental Psychology, University College London, UK; Cognition and Action Laboratory, Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Elkins Park, PA, USA.
| | - Anna Krason
- Experimental Psychology, University College London, UK
| | - Harrison Stoll
- Cognition and Action Laboratory, Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Elkins Park, PA, USA
| | | | - Laurel J Buxbaum
- Cognition and Action Laboratory, Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Elkins Park, PA, USA
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Vitale F, Padrón I, Avenanti A, de Vega M. Enhancing Motor Brain Activity Improves Memory for Action Language: A tDCS Study. Cereb Cortex 2020; 31:1569-1581. [PMID: 33136142 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa309] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/08/2019] [Revised: 08/17/2020] [Accepted: 08/28/2020] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
The embodied cognition approach to linguistic meaning posits that action language understanding is grounded in sensory-motor systems. However, evidence that the human motor cortex is necessary for action language memory is meager. To address this issue, in two groups of healthy individuals, we perturbed the left primary motor cortex (M1) by means of either anodal or cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), before participants had to memorize lists of manual action and attentional sentences. In each group, participants received sham and active tDCS in two separate sessions. Following anodal tDCS (a-tDCS), participants improved the recall of action sentences compared with sham tDCS. No similar effects were detected following cathodal tDCS (c-tDCS). Both a-tDCS and c-tDCS induced variable changes in motor excitability, as measured by motor-evoked potentials induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation. Remarkably, across groups, action-specific memory improvements were positively predicted by changes in motor excitability. We provide evidence that excitatory modulation of the motor cortex selectively improves performance in a task requiring comprehension and memory of action sentences. These findings indicate that M1 is necessary for accurate processing of linguistic meanings and thus provide causal evidence that high-order cognitive functions are grounded in the human motor system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesca Vitale
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 38200, Spain
| | - Iván Padrón
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 38200, Spain
| | - Alessio Avenanti
- Dipartimento di Psicologia, Centro studi e ricerche in Neuroscienze Cognitive, Alma Mater Studiorum-Università di Bologna, Cesena 47521, Italy
- Centro de Investigación en Neuropsicología y Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad Católica del Maule, Talca 3460000, Chile
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 38200, Spain
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Towards Understanding the Task Dependency of Embodied Language Processing: The Influence of Colour During Language-Vision Interactions. J Cogn 2020; 3:41. [PMID: 33134815 PMCID: PMC7583718 DOI: 10.5334/joc.135] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
A main challenge for theories of embodied cognition is to understand the task dependency of embodied language processing. One possibility is that perceptual representations (e.g., typical colour of objects mentioned in spoken sentences) are not activated routinely but the influence of perceptual representation emerges only when context strongly supports their involvement in language. To explore this question, we tested the effects of colour representations during language processing in three visual-world eye-tracking experiments. On critical trials, participants listened to sentence-embedded words associated with a prototypical colour (e.g., ‘…spinach…’) while they inspected a visual display with four printed words (Experiment 1), coloured or greyscale line drawings (Experiment 2) and a ‘blank screen’ after a preview of coloured or greyscale line drawings (Experiment 3). Visual context always presented a word/object (e.g., frog) associated with the same prototypical colour (e.g. green) as the spoken target word and three distractors. When hearing spinach participants did not prefer the written word frog compared to other distractor words (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, colour competitors attracted more overt attention compared to average distractors, but only for the coloured condition and not for greyscale trials. Finally, when the display was removed at the onset of the sentence, and in contrast to the previous blank-screen experiments with semantic competitors, there was no evidence of colour competition in the eye-tracking record (Experiment 3). These results fit best with the notion that the main role of perceptual representations in language processing is to contextualize language in the immediate environment.
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48
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Kuhnke P, Beaupain MC, Cheung VKM, Weise K, Kiefer M, Hartwigsen G. Left posterior inferior parietal cortex causally supports the retrieval of action knowledge. Neuroimage 2020; 219:117041. [PMID: 32534127 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117041] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2020] [Revised: 05/07/2020] [Accepted: 06/06/2020] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Conceptual knowledge is central to human cognition. The left posterior inferior parietal lobe (pIPL) is implicated by neuroimaging studies as a multimodal hub representing conceptual knowledge related to various perceptual-motor modalities. However, the causal role of left pIPL in conceptual processing remains unclear. Here, we transiently disrupted left pIPL function with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to probe its causal relevance for the retrieval of action and sound knowledge. We compared effective TMS over left pIPL with sham TMS, while healthy participants performed three different tasks-lexical decision, action judgment, and sound judgment-on words with a high or low association to actions and sounds. We found that pIPL-TMS selectively impaired action judgments on low sound-low action words. For the first time, we directly related computational simulations of the TMS-induced electrical field to behavioral performance, which revealed that stronger stimulation of left pIPL is associated with worse performance for action but not sound judgments. These results indicate that left pIPL causally supports conceptual processing when action knowledge is task-relevant and cannot be compensated by sound knowledge. Our findings suggest that left pIPL is specialized for the retrieval of action knowledge, challenging the view of left pIPL as a multimodal conceptual hub.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philipp Kuhnke
- Lise Meitner Research Group 'Cognition and Plasticity', Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
| | - Marie C Beaupain
- Lise Meitner Research Group 'Cognition and Plasticity', Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Vincent K M Cheung
- Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Konstantin Weise
- Methods and Development Group 'Brain Networks', Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | | | - Gesa Hartwigsen
- Lise Meitner Research Group 'Cognition and Plasticity', Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
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49
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Barsalou LW. Challenges and Opportunities for Grounding Cognition. J Cogn 2020; 3:31. [PMID: 33043241 PMCID: PMC7528688 DOI: 10.5334/joc.116] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2020] [Accepted: 07/20/2020] [Indexed: 01/09/2023] Open
Abstract
According to the grounded perspective, cognition emerges from the interaction of classic cognitive processes with the modalities, the body, and the environment. Rather than being an autonomous impenetrable module, cognition incorporates these other domains intrinsically into its operation. The Situated Action Cycle offers one way of understanding how the modalities, the body, and the environment become integrated to ground cognition. Seven challenges and opportunities are raised for this perspective: (1) How does cognition emerge from the Situated Action Cycle and in turn support it? (2) How can we move beyond simply equating embodiment with action, additionally establishing how embodiment arises in the autonomic, neuroendocrine, immune, cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, and integumentary systems? (3) How can we better understand the mechanisms underlying multimodal simulation, its functions across the Situated Action Cycle, and its integration with other representational systems? (4) How can we develop and assess theoretical accounts of symbolic processing from the grounded perspective (perhaps using the construct of simulators)? (5) How can we move beyond the simplistic distinction between concrete and abstract concepts, instead addressing how concepts about the external and internal worlds pattern to support the Situated Action Cycle? (6) How do individual differences emerge from different populations of situational memories as the Situated Action Cycle manifests itself differently across individuals? (7) How can constructs from grounded cognition provide insight into the replication and generalization crises, perhaps from a quantum perspective on mechanisms (as exemplified by simulators).
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Affiliation(s)
- Lawrence W. Barsalou
- Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
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Birba A, Vitale F, Padrón I, Dottori M, de Vega M, Zimerman M, Sedeño L, Ibáñez A, García AM. Electrifying discourse: Anodal tDCS of the primary motor cortex selectively reduces action appraisal in naturalistic narratives. Cortex 2020; 132:460-472. [PMID: 32950239 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.08.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2020] [Revised: 07/08/2020] [Accepted: 08/05/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Non-invasive stimulation of the primary motor cortex (M1) modulates processing of decontextualized action words and sentences (i.e., verbal units denoting bodily motion). This suggests that language comprehension hinges on brain circuits mediating the bodily experiences evoked by verbal material. Yet, despite its relevance to constrain mechanistic language models, such a finding fails to reveal whether and how relevant circuits operate in the face of full-blown, everyday texts. Using a novel naturalistic discourse paradigm, we examined whether direct modulation of M1 excitability influences the grasping of narrated actions. Following random group assignment, participants received anodal transcranial direct current stimulation over the left M1, or sham stimulation of the same area, or anodal stimulation of the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Immediately afterwards, they listened to action-laden and neutral stories and answered questions on information realized by verbs (denoting action and non-action processes) and circumstances (conveying locative or temporal details). Anodal stimulation of the left M1 selectively decreased outcomes on action-relative to non-action information -a pattern that discriminated between stimulated and sham participants with 74% accuracy. This result was particular to M1 and held irrespective of the subjects' working memory and vocabulary skills, further attesting to its specificity. Our findings suggest that offline modulation of motor-network excitability might lead to transient unavailability of putative resources needed to evoke actions in naturalistic texts, opening promising avenues for the language embodiment framework.
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Affiliation(s)
- Agustina Birba
- Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, Argentina; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Francesca Vitale
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
| | - Iván Padrón
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
| | - Martín Dottori
- Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, Argentina; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
| | - Máximo Zimerman
- Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT), INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Lucas Sedeño
- National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Agustín Ibáñez
- Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, Argentina; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience (CSCN), School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago de Chile, Chile; Universidad Autónoma del Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia; Global Brain Health Institute, University of California, San Francisco, United States
| | - Adolfo M García
- Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, Argentina; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Global Brain Health Institute, University of California, San Francisco, United States; Faculty of Education, National University of Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina; Departamento de Lingüística y Literatura, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
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