The time course of motor-semantic integrationduring written verb production

Adolfo M. García a,b,c,d Agustín Ibáñez a,b,c,e,f

a. Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience, INECO, Favaloro University, Bs. As., Argentina. b. CONICET, Bs. As., Argentina. c. NUFIN Core on Neuroscience, UDP, Santiago, Chile. d. FEEyE, UNCuyo, Mendoza, Argentina. e. Universidad Autónoma del Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia. f. Center of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Australian Research Council, New South Wales, Australia.

www.fundacionfavaloro.org www.fundacionineco.org www.ineco.org.ar

INTRODUCTION RESULTS

METHODS

CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCESACKNOWLEDGMENTS

by CONICET, CONICYT/FONDECYT Regular (1130920), COLCIENCIAS (1115-545-31374 and 1115-569-33858), FONCyT-PICT 2012-0412, FONCyT-PICT 2012-1309, and the INECO Foundation.

FLL RESULTS (motor planning)

Motor-semantic interference

Both primes and targets denoting motor actions interfered with the initiation of typing.

Interference was greater when primes denoted manual actions.

The latter effect was reversed on targets, where manual verbs produced less significant interference than non-manual motor verbs.

All ps < .05, all η2s > .44

No prime x target interaction (p = .10, η2 = 0.06)

1. Gallese, V. & G. Lakoff (2005). The brain’s concepts: The role of the sensory-motor system in conceptual knowledge. Cogn Neuropsychol 22(3), 455-79.2. Fischer, M. & R. Zwaan (2008). Embodied language: A review of the role of the motor system in language comprehension. Q J Exp Psychol 61(6), 825-50.3. Mirabella, G. et al. (2012). Processing of hand-related verbs specifically affects the planning and execution of arm reaching movements. PLoS One 7(4), e35403.4. Carl, M. (2012). Translog-II: A program for recording […]. In N. Calzolari et al. (eds.), Proc Eight Int Conf on Lang Res and Eval (4108-42). Copenhagen: ELRA.

PARTICIPANTS

Thirty-three (F: 27) Spanish speakers

Age: 25.4 ± 7.6

Years of education: 18.9 ± 3.05

Frequent users of QWERTY keyboards

STIMULI DESIGN

Figure 1. First-letter lag (FLL) results. Error bars represent SDs. Asterisks indicate statistically significant differences. (A) Main effect of prime. (B) Main effect of target.

Figure 2. Whole-word lag (WWL) results. Error bars represent SDs. Asterisks indicate statistically significant differences. (A) Main effect of prime. (B) Main effect of target. (C) Prime x target interaction.

ANALYSIS VARIABLES

First-letter lag (FLL): from target onset to first keystroke

Whole-word lag (WWL): from first to last keystroke

Research partially supported

The embodied cognition framework posits that high-order cognition, including language, is grounded in sensorimotor systems (e.g., 1). Abundant supporting evidence has shown that reading or listening to action verbs (e.g., applaud) modulates the execution of manual actions (e.g., object grasping, button pushing) (2).

However, few studies have addressed motor-semantic coupling during language production, let alone in the written mode. To examine such effects in the context of language-relevant actions, we designed a novel word-typing task. Guided by previous research (e.g., 3), we hypothesized that primed action-verb typing would produce:

(i) effector-specific and overall motor interference during motor planning;

(ii) less marked interference effects accompanied by semantic priming throughout typing kinematics.

1. Motor-semantic integration evinces different dynamics during motor planning vs. execution.2. Interference is maximal during motor planning of action-verb typing, but it tends to diminish

throughout typing kinematics.3. As motor-semantic interference is reduced, motor-independent conceptual information infiltrates

the process, facilitating typing kinematics.4. Our results support a non-extreme view of embodiment, as action-language production mechanics

are not exclusively sensitive to motor-specific effects.

1.2.

3.

4.

1 very low2 low3 interm.4 advanced5 expert

30 Spanish verbs (all ending in -ar)

10 motor-manual (Ma) (e.g., tocar [touch])

10 motor-non-manual (Mo) (e.g., saltar [jump])

10 non-motor (nM) (e.g., odiar [hate])

Blocks matched for log frequency, familiarity, age of acquisition, syllabic and orthographic length, bigram and trigram frequency, number of orthographic neighbors (all ps > .08), but nM less imageable than Ma and Mo (p < .001)

Nine prime-target conditions (N = 90)MaP-MaT, MoP-MaT, nMP-MaT

MaP-MoT, MoP-MoT, nMP-MoT

MaP-nMT, MoP-nMT, nMP-nMT

DATA COLLECTION

Translog-II: background-running program to log keystroke timing in ms (4)

WWL RESULTS (typing kinematics)

Two distinct behavioral patterns on WWL

Reduced motor-semantic interference

Primes denoting motor actions (be they manual or non-manual) interfered with target typing.

All ps < .01, η2 > .18

Semantic congruence facilitation

Typing was facilitated when the target was primed by a same-type verb.

All ps < .05, all η2s > .11

Thus, post-onset production was selectively facilitated by semantic congruency between primes and targets, irrespective of the verbs’ motor content.

Hardware-related skills: 3.43 ± .62

Software-related skills: 3.40 ± .62

Keyboard-typing skills: 3.5 ± .63

Number of fingers used for typing: 6.1 ± 2.3