The sounds of meaning: Investigating the functional interaction between action sounds and semantics

最近的研究表明，认知-语义记忆的获取以及音素处理都是基于对行为和感知的认识；然而，语言音素和语义过程在多大程度上受到动作和感知机制的影响，并在功能上依赖于这些机制，仍然存在争议。我们将通过研究启动效应来解决这些问题，在行为和神经生理水平上，在动作声音和概念语言信息的处理之间表现出来。(1)动作声音的处理和通常用于描述动作的词语的处理之间的功能关系，(2)非语言声学信号和音素语音之间的功能关系将通过脑电图进行研究，为了更好地在硬脑膜下网格电极的癫痫患者中进行皮质定位。此外，我们将在健康人群中使用经颅磁刺激，并研究截瘫和四肢瘫痪脊髓损伤患者，以解决运动系统功能对处理非语言动作声音和具体动作相关语言的可能因果影响。我们期望这些实验的结果将允许评估当前关于基础认知的理论，这些理论假设在概念和语言处理中感觉和运动机制的功能和因果作用。

Recent research has shown that cognitive-semantic memory access as well as phoneme processing are grounded in knowledge about actions and perceptions; however it remains under debate to what degree linguistic phonemic and semantic processes are influenced by, and functionally depend on, action and perception mechanisms. We will address these questions by investigating priming effects, manifest at the behavioural and neurophysiological levels, between the processing of action sounds and conceptual-linguistic information. The functional relationship (i) between the processing of action sounds and of words typically used to speak about actions, and (ii) between non-linguistic acoustic signals and phonemic speech sounds will be studied using EEG and, for better cortical localization, in epilepsy patients with subdural grid electrodes. In addition, we will use TMS in healthy people and study paraplegic and tetraplegic spinal cord injury patients to address possible causal effects of motor system functionality for processing non-linguistic action sounds and concrete action-related language. We expect that the results of these experiments will allow for an evaluation of current theories about grounded cognition that postulate a functional and causal role of sensory and motor mechanisms in conceptual and linguistic processing.