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Language-induced motor activity in bi-manual object lifting

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Abstract

Language comprehension requires a simulation process that taps perception and action systems. How specific is this simulation? To address this question, participants listened to sentences referring to the lifting of light or heavy objects (e.g., pillow or chest, respectively). Then they lifted one of two boxes that were visually identical, but one was light and the other heavy. We focused on the kinematics of the initial lift (rather than reaching) because it is mostly shaped by proprioceptive features derived from weight that cannot be visually determined. Participants were slower when the weight suggested by the sentence and the weight of the box corresponded. This effect indicates that language can activate a simulation which is sensitive to intrinsic properties such as weight.

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Notes

  1. Objects mass is an intrinsic object property that does not depend on the object spatial position, whereas object weight is the gravitational field effect on this mass. However, from here on, we will refer to mass as ‘weight’, following the literature mainstream.

  2. Span: the distance between the tip of the thumb and the tip of the little finger, when the hand is fully extended.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Ministero Italiano dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca (MIUR), Progetto PRIN 2006, by a University of Bologna Ph.D. grant to the first author and by the FP7 project ROSSI, Emergence of communication in RObots through Sensorimotor and Social Interaction, Grant agreement no: 216125 to the second author. We thank Roberto Bolzani, Daniele Caligiore, and Barbara Marino for useful discussions of these data. Thanks also to the students of courses in cognitive psychology for their help in executing the experiment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication Disciplines, University of Bologna, via Azzo Gardino, 23, 40122, Bologna, Italy

    Claudia Scorolli

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, via Berti Pichat, 5, 40127, Bologna, Italy

    Anna M. Borghi

  3. Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 871104, Tempe, AZ, 85287-1104, USA

    Arthur Glenberg

  4. Deparment of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, 1202 West Johnson Street, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Arthur Glenberg

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  1. Claudia Scorolli
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  2. Anna M. Borghi
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  3. Arthur Glenberg
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Correspondence to Claudia Scorolli.

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All human studies have been approved by the appropriate ethics committee and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki.

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Scorolli, C., Borghi, A.M. & Glenberg, A. Language-induced motor activity in bi-manual object lifting. Exp Brain Res 193, 43–53 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-008-1593-4

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