Abstract
In the present study, we investigated whether action observation can influence action verb processing. Participants saw a prime consisting of a point-light display of a human performing an action and then had to perform a lexical decision task on verbs and pseudo-verbs. These verbs were either congruent or incongruent with the prime that had just been presented. Data analysis showed a facilitation effect on response times for congruent action verbs after having seen an action prime, whereas no facilitation was obtained for incongruent action verbs or for scrambled primes. These results showed that action observation can modify the subsequent processing of action verbs. This confirms that action perception and action words processing share common representations. These findings agree with the embodied view of cognition and open new perspectives to the better understanding of mechanisms related to action word processing.
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We performed all aspects of this study in accordance with the ethical standards set out in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. The study was approved by the local ethics committee of the institution—Centre for Research in Cognition and Learning (CeRCA)—and was conducted in accordance with national norms and guidelines for the protection of human subjects. All participants gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study.
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Beauprez, SA., Bidet-Ildei, C. Perceiving a Biological Human Movement Facilitates Action Verb Processing. Curr Psychol 38, 1355–1359 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9694-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9694-5