Syntax matters in shaping sensorimotor activation driven by nouns.

Existing evidence has shown that adjectives modulate the grasp-compatibility effect elicited by object nouns. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of syntax on the sensorimotor activation elicited by nouns in a grasp-compatibility task. We assessed two languages with different syntactic rules, Italian in Experiment 1 and English in Experiment 2.

Grasping the semantic of actions: a combined behavioral and MEG study.

There is experimental evidence that the brain systems involved in action execution also play a role in action observation and understanding. Recently, it has been suggested that the sensorimotor system is also involved in language processing. Supporting results are slower response times and weaker motor-related MEG Beta band power suppression in semantic decision tasks on single action verbs labels when the stimulus and the motor response involve the same effector.

Seeing through the cat's eyes: evidence of a spontaneous perspective taking process using a non-human avatar.

In many daily face-to-face interactions, people are able to take the perspective of others, for example, coding right and left based on point-of-view of others. In the present study, we investigated whether observers are able to take the perspective of a non-human figure such as a cat, observing the same effects obtained with human or robot avatars. In both experiments, we used a centrally presented stimulus (i.

What matters is the underlying experience: Similar motor responses during processing observed hand actions and hand-related verbs.

It is well-accepted that processing observed actions involves at some extent the same neural mechanisms responsible for action execution. More recently, it has been forwarded that also the processing of verbs expressing a specific motor content is subserved by the neural mechanisms allowing individuals to perform the content expressed by that linguistic material. This view is also known as embodiment and contrasts with a more classical approach to language processing that considers it as amodal.

Influence of colour on object motor representation.

Colour conveys specific information about the status/quality of an object; whereas its role in object recognition has been widely studied, little is known about its role in sensorimotor processes. We performed three experiments to assess whether colour influences the motor representation of graspable objects. In Experiment 1, we used a grasp compatibility task, in which participants categorized each object as natural or artifact, by performing reach-to-grasp movements.

Adjectives Modulate Sensorimotor Activation Driven by Nouns.

We performed three experiments to investigate whether adjectives can modulate the sensorimotor activation elicited by nouns. In Experiment 1, nouns of graspable objects were used as stimuli. Participants had to decide if each noun referred to a natural or artifact, by performing either a precision or a power reach-to-grasp movement.

Handle-Hand Compatibility Effects for the Right and Left Hand Using Reach-to-Touch Movements.

In stimulus-response compatibility tasks, performance is better when the handle of an object is oriented on the same side of the response than when the handle is oriented on the opposite side. Two major alternative accounts, the motor affordance and spatial accounts, have been proposed to explain this handle-hand compatibility effect. In two experiments, we tested between these two accounts by administering a go/no-go task to right-handed participants.

Action preparation in grasping reveals generalization of precision between implicit and explicit motor processes.

It is often claimed that merely seeing a graspable object can elicit the implicit representation of a potential grasp. But can this representation affect the explicit execution of an actual grasp, and if so, how? In an open-loop paradigm, we instructed participants to grasp small, medium, or large test disks with the appropriate grip configuration (pincer, tripod, or pentapod). Before the presentation of these tests, we presented congruent or incongruent distractors.

The Stroop-matching task as a tool to study the correspondence effect using images of graspable and non-graspable objects.

The Stroop-matching task is a variation of the Stroop task in which participants have to compare a Stroop stimulus attribute (color or word) to a second stimulus. The Stroop-matching response conflict (SMRC) represents an interference related to the processes involved in selection/execution of manual responses. In the present study, we developed a variation of the Stroop-matching task in which the Stroop stimuli were matched to graspable objects (a cup) with intact or broken handles laterally oriented (Experiment 1) or to colored bars laterally presented (Experiment 2).

The Uznadze illusion reveals similar effects of relative size on perception and action.

Milner and Goodale (the visual brain in action, Oxford University Press Inc., Oxford, 1995) proposed a functional dissociation between vision-for-action and vision-for-perception (i.e.

Nature and Cognitive Perception of 4 Different Breakfast Meals Influence Satiety-Related Sensations and Postprandial Metabolic Responses but Have Little Effect on Food Choices and Intake Later in the Day in a Randomized Crossover Trial in Healthy Men.

Background: Regular breakfast consumption is associated with better health status and healthier food intake throughout the day, but this association is a complex interaction of several factors.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effect of nutritional and cognitive-perceived characteristics of breakfast on metabolic and behavioral variables related to food intake.

Methods: The study was a randomized, crossover, controlled trial, with 4 experimental conditions consisting of 3 iso-energetic breakfasts and 1 energy-free control meal.

Food perception at lunchtime does not depend on the nutritional and perceived characteristics of breakfast.

Breakfast consumption can entail nutritional advantages positively affecting food choices. This study investigated the effect of minor changes in breakfast composition on the perceived attributes of foods, both at breakfast and at lunchtime. Four breakfasts were defined considering nutritional and perceptual factors.

Chained Activation of the Motor System during Language Understanding.

Two experiments were carried out to investigate whether and how one important characteristic of the motor system, that is its goal-directed organization in motor chains, is reflected in language processing. This possibility stems from the embodied theory of language, according to which the linguistic system re-uses the structures of the motor system. The participants were presented with nouns of common tools preceded by a pair of verbs expressing grasping or observational motor chains (i.

The Influence of Social and Nonsocial Variables on the Simon Effect.

Recently, the Simon effect (SE) has been observed in social contexts when two individuals share a two-choice task. This joint SE (JSE) has been interpreted as evidence that people co-represent their actions. However, it is still not clear if the JSE is driven by social factors or low-level mechanisms.

Influence of short incompatible practice on the Simon effect: transfer along the vertical dimension and across vertical and horizontal dimensions.

In spatial compatibility and Simon tasks, the response is faster when stimulus and response locations are on the same side than when they are on opposite sides. It has been shown that a spatial incompatible practice leads to a subsequent modulation of the Simon effect along the horizontal dimension. It has also been reported that this modulation occurs both along and across vertical and horizontal dimensions, but only after intensive incompatible training (600 trials).

Neural Adaptation Effects in Conceptual Processing.

We investigated the conceptual processing of nouns referring to objects characterized by a highly typical color and orientation. We used a go/no-go task in which we asked participants to categorize each noun as referring or not to natural entities (e.g.

Stable and variable affordances are both automatic and flexible.

The mere observation of pictures or words referring to manipulable objects is sufficient to evoke their affordances since objects and their nouns elicit components of appropriate motor programs associated with object interaction. While nobody doubts that objects actually evoke motor information, the degree of automaticity of this activation has been recently disputed. Recent evidence has indeed revealed that affordances activation is flexibly modulated by the task and by the physical and social context.

Spatial stimulus-response compatibility and affordance effects are not ruled by the same mechanisms.

Stimulus position is coded even if it is task-irrelevant, leading to faster response times when the stimulus and the response locations are compatible (spatial Stimulus-Response Compatibility-spatial SRC). Faster responses are also found when the handle of a visual object and the response hand are located on the same side; this is known as affordance effect (AE). Two contrasting accounts for AE have been classically proposed.

Nouns referring to tools and natural objects differentially modulate the motor system.

While increasing evidence points to a critical role for the motor system in language processing, the focus of previous work has been on the linguistic category of verbs. Here we tested whether nouns are effective in modulating the motor system and further whether different kinds of nouns - those referring to artifacts or natural items, and items that are graspable or ungraspable - would differentially modulate the system. A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) study was carried out to compare modulation of the motor system when subjects read nouns referring to objects which are Artificial or Natural and which are Graspable or Ungraspable.

Abstract and concrete sentences, embodiment, and languages.

One of the main challenges of embodied theories is accounting for meanings of abstract words. The most common explanation is that abstract words, like concrete ones, are grounded in perception and action systems. According to other explanations, abstract words, differently from concrete ones, would activate situations and introspection; alternatively, they would be represented through metaphoric mapping.

Objects and their nouns in peripersonal space.

In this study we investigated whether objects and their name evoke the activation of the same motor programs. In the first experiment participants had to make speeded responses based on the category of an object. They had to signal whether an object, presented visually, either within or outside their reachable space, was natural or manufactured, by making reach-to-precision or reach-to-power grasp responses.

How the motor system handles nouns: a behavioral study.

It is an open question whether the motor system is involved during understanding of concrete nouns, as it is for concrete verbs. To clarify this issue, we carried out a behavioral experiment using a go-no go paradigm with an early and delayed go-signal delivery. Italian nouns referring to concrete objects (hand-related or foot-related) and abstract entities served as stimuli.

Language sensorimotor specificity modulates the motor system.

Embodied approaches to language understanding hold that comprehension of linguistic material entails a situated simulation of the situation described. Some recent studies have shown that implicit, explicit, and relational properties of objects implied in a sentence are part of this simulation. However, the issue concerning the extent to which language sensorimotor specificity expressed by linguistic constituents of a sentence, contributes to situating the simulation process has not yet been adequately addressed.

Broken affordances, broken objects: a TMS study.

It is well known that specific components of motor programs are automatically activated when they are afforded by object related pragmatic features. Among these features the handle appears to be particularly salient for interacting with an object. The aim of this study was to test the modulation of the motor system when object features, particularly relevant for the action, like the object's handle, are violated.

Sentence comprehension and simulation of object temporary, canonical and stable affordances.

Two experiments investigate the effects of language comprehension on affordances. Participants read a sentence composed by either an observation or an action verb (Look at/Grasp) followed by an object name. They had to decide whether the visual object following the sentence was the same as the one mentioned in the sentence.