The Influence Of Body Movements On Verb Processin

According to the embodied semantic approach,processing and representation of verb semantic knowledge take place in sensorimotor brain regions.Sensorimotor brain regions are active when people are engaged in the semantic comprehension of action-related verbal texts,according to brain imaging studies on semantic comprehension.However,it is debatable whether there is a precise link between the sensorimotor brain areas and the semantic understanding brain regions of physical verbs.Individual variations in physiological experience and the utilization of various semantic resources may be connected to this.The purpose of this study was to investigate the specificity of the semantic understanding of Chinese single words by manipulating the types of Chinese text materials(pseudowords and abstract pseudowords)and asking the same subjects to learn physical action pseudowords(word sounds,word forms,word meanings,and representative body movements)before and after the study.A total of 12 subjects were recruited for the study,and a single-factor within-subject experiment was carried out on them.The findings demonstrated that the frontal sensorimotor cortex was activated in response to all three forms of action pseudoword semantic comprehension that involved various body parts.The post-learning semantic comprehension of Chinese pseudowords engaged sensory and motor cortices,including the left precentral gyrus and left supplementary motor area,in addition to the traditional semantic understanding brain regions,as compared to the pre-learning activation pattern.The abstract action pseudowords that did not include any body parts and the three forms of action pseudowords involving various body parts particularly stimulated sensorimotor brain regions.The findings of this study imply that the sensorimotor brain areas responsible for the actual execution of physical actions are consistent with the semantic interpretation of single Chinese phrases involving bodily movements.