Abstract
Embodied/modality-specific theories of semantic memory propose that sensorimotor representations play an important role in perception and action. A large body of evidence supports the notion that concepts involving human motor action (i.e., semantic-motor representations) are processed in both language and motor regions of the brain. However, most studies have focused on perceptual tasks, leaving unanswered questions about language-motor interaction during production tasks. Thus, we investigated the effects of shared semantic-motor representations on concurrent language and motor production tasks in healthy young adults, manipulating the semantic task (motor-related vs. nonmotor-related words) and the motor task (i.e., standing still and finger-tapping). In Experiment 1 (n = 20), we demonstrated that motor-related word generation was sufficient to affect postural control. In Experiment 2 (n = 40), we demonstrated that motor-related word generation was sufficient to facilitate word generation and finger tapping. We conclude that engaging semantic-motor representations can have a reciprocal influence on motor and language production. Our study provides additional support for functional language-motor interaction, as well as embodied/modality-specific theories.
Highlights
Semantic memory is a subsystem of human memory that underlies knowledge of word and object meaning
While increased cognitive load may have contributed to our findings, the interpretation that higher cognitive load increased center of pressure (COP) displacement in the Semantic-Motor condition is based on the assumption that number of words produced is an index of increased cognitive complexity
Interim Discussion Concurrent finger tapping and word generation interfered with finger tapping and significantly slowed word production in the Semantic-Other condition, a finding that is consistent with the dual task literature
Summary
Semantic memory is a subsystem of human memory that underlies knowledge of word and object meaning. As such, this form of memory acts as the substrate for many of our most fundamental interactions with the world. A dominant prior approach to semantic memory with roots in philosophy held that humans represent object knowledge via an abstract, amodal manner that does not honor the sensorimotor features of objects [1]. This disembodied view of conceptual knowledge has waned in favor of theories premised upon modality-specific roles of perception, action, and mental simulation [2]. A condition of virtually all neurologically constrained theories of semantic memory is that they must specify the extent to which object concepts are grounded in perception and action
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