Abstract
Theories of embodied cognition positing that sensorimotor areas are indispensable during language comprehension are supported by neuroimaging and behavioural studies. Among others, the auditory system has been suggested to be important for understanding sound-related words (visually presented) and the motor system for action-related words. In this behavioural study, using a sound detection task embedded in a lexical decision task, we show that in participants with high lexical decision performance sound verbs improve auditory perception. The amount of modulation was correlated with lexical decision performance. Our study provides convergent behavioural evidence of auditory cortex involvement in word processing, supporting the view of embodied language comprehension concerning the auditory domain.
Highlights
According to theories of embodied cognition, language comprehension involves a distributed brain network, including sensorimotor areas—at least for concrete words (Barsalou 2008; Pulvermüller 1999, 2013)
The significant interaction effect showed that the modulation of lexical decision performance across word categories was only true for the LP group (F(2,26) = 6.33, p = 0.01), but not for the HP group (F(2,28) = 2.09, p = 0.16)
We calculated a sound detection performance modulation effect indexing to what extent the detection performance benefitted from sound verb reading
Summary
According to theories of embodied cognition, language comprehension involves a distributed brain network, including sensorimotor areas—at least for concrete words (Barsalou 2008; Pulvermüller 1999, 2013). A recent MEG study replicated this finding and found that the activation in the motor cortex could be detected about 80 ms after the onset of the full word, ruling out the possibility that the observed activation in the motor cortex is a result of mental imagery and supporting the idea of embodied language comprehension (Shtyrov et al 2014). In addition to neuroimaging studies, behavioural studies showed that motor responses (reaction time (RT), accuracy) were influenced after reading action-related words (Andres et al 2015; Boulenger et al 2008; Klepp et al 2015; Mirabella et al 2012; Sato et al 2008). Mirabella et al (2012) found increased RTs and increased error rates in motor responses in a Go/NoGo task when the same effector was involved as in the presented verbs
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