Research article summary (published 27 Oct 2008):

Concepts are more than percepts: the case of action verbs.

Full Abstract

Several regions of the posterior-lateral-temporal cortex (PLTC) are reliably recruited when participants read or listen to action verbs, relative to other word and nonword types. This PLTC activation is generally interpreted as reflecting the retrieval of visual-motion features of actions. This interpretation supports the broader theory, that concepts are comprised of sensory-motor features. We investigated an alternative interpretation of the same activations: PLTC activity for action verbs reflects the retrieval of modality-independent representations of event concepts, or the grammatical types associated with them, i.e., verbs. During a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, participants made semantic-relatedness judgments on word pairs varying in amount of visual-motion information. Replicating previous results, several PLTC regions showed higher responses to words that describe actions versus objects. However, we found that these PLTC regions did not overlap with visual-motion regions. Moreover, their response was higher for verbs than nouns, regardless of visual-motion features. For example, the response of the PLTC is equally high to action verbs (e.g., to run) and mental verbs (e.g., to think), and equally low to animal nouns (e.g., the cat) and inanimate natural kind nouns (e.g., the rock). Thus, PLTC activity for action verbs might reflect the retrieval of event concepts, or the grammatical information associated with verbs. We conclude that concepts are abstracted away from sensory-motor experience and organized according to conceptual properties.

Author information

Author/s: Bedny, Marina (M); Caramazza, Alfonso (A); Grossman, Emily (E); Pascual-Leone, Alvaro (A); Saxe, Rebecca (R);

Affiliation: Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA. mbedny(-atsign-)bidmc.harvard.edu

Grants: K24 RR018875 (Agency:NCRR NIH HHS) ; K24 RR018875-01 (Agency:NCRR NIH HHS) ; K24 RR018875-02 (Agency:NCRR NIH HHS) ; K24 RR018875-03 (Agency:NCRR NIH HHS) ; K24 RR018875-04 (Agency:NCRR NIH HHS) ; K24 RR018875-05 (Agency:NCRR NIH HHS) ; R01 DC006842 (Agency:NIDCD NIH HHS) ; R01 DC006842-01A2 (Agency:NIDCD NIH HHS) ; R01 DC006842-02 (Agency:NIDCD NIH HHS) ; R01 DC006842-03 (Agency:NIDCD NIH HHS) ; R01 DC006842-04 (Agency:NIDCD NIH HHS) ; R01 EY012091-02 (Agency:NEI NIH HHS) ; R01 EY012091-03 (Agency:NEI NIH HHS) ; R01 EY012091-04 (Agency:NEI NIH HHS) ; R01 EY12091 (Agency:NEI NIH HHS) ; R01 MH067008 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS) ; R21 EY0116168 (Agency:NEI NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

Journal: The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience (J Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Oct; vol 28 (issue 44) : pp 11347-53

Dates: Created 2008/10/30; Completed 2008/11/18; Revised 2009/09/28;

PMID: 18971476, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 9/29/2009, IMS Date: 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Acoustic Stimulation - methods Adult Female Humans Language Language Tests

Language Tests Male Motion Perception - physiology Reaction Time - physiology Temporal Lobe - physiology Word Association Tests

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