Abstract
This study examined whether systematic whole-body stimulation and increased attention to visuospatial motion patterns can enhance the appraisal of action meanings evoked by naturalistic texts. Participants listened to action and neutral (non-action) narratives before and after videogame-based bodily training, and responded to questions on information realized by verbs (denoting abstract and action processes) and circumstances (conveying locative or temporal details, for example). Strategically, we worked with dyslexic children, whose potential comprehension deficits could give room to post-training improvements. Results showed a selective boost in understanding of action information, even when controlling for baseline performance. Also, this effect proved uninfluenced by short-term memory skills, and it was absent when training relied on non-action videogames requiring minimal bodily engagement. Of note, the movements described in the texts did not match those performed by participants, suggesting that well-established effector- and direction-specific language embodiment effects may be accompanied by more coarse-grained sensorimotor resonance, driven by activation of motor and visuospatial sensory systems. In sum, the stimulation of movement-related mechanisms seems to selectively boost the appraisal of actions evoked by naturalistic texts. By demonstrating such links between two real-life activities, our study offers an empirical tie between embodied and situated accounts of cognition.
Highlights
In line with the embodied cognition framework[1], several studies show that action training can causally impact the understanding of words and sentences denoting bodily movements[2]
Two critical issues remain unresolved: (i) could such effects extend beyond atomistic tasks and emerge in naturalistic text processing?; and (ii) can they be triggered by immersive, whole-body training activities engaging motor and motion-related sensory systems? To address both questions, we implemented a videogame-based motor training protocol and assessed the appraisal of actions in narratives through discourse-level processes subsuming multiple operations
In line with evidence that action-semantic deficits in movement disorders are not explained by executive dysfunction[31,41], these results suggest that the observed action-appraisal effect might be unmediated by extralinguistic functions
Summary
In line with the embodied cognition framework[1], several studies show that action training can causally impact the understanding of words and sentences denoting bodily movements[2]. Increased attention to visuospatial motion patterns during non-manipulated whole-body action videogame (AVG) playing can improve the efficiency of the magnocellular dorsal pathway or action stream[15] This warrants the conjecture that training protocols based on daily life activities could hone motion-related mechanisms and favor the appraisal of action-related meanings –crucially including, but not limited to, their comprehension. Our training protocol required participants to play whole-body AVGs on a Nintendo Wii, which allowed us to circumvent some of the artificial constraints characterizing classical paradigms in cognitive science (such as the continuous performance of a single motor action in the context of an otherwise static body) These games elicit multiple patterns of simultaneous and coordinated multi-limb movements, and they can induce specific cognitive enhancements in dyslexic children[15]
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