Semantics in action: an electrophysiological study on the use of semantic knowledge for action

Recent studies have supported close interactions between language and action-related processes, suggesting comparable neural mechanisms. However, relatively little is known about the semantics involved in action planning. The present study investigated the activation of semantic knowledge in meaningful actions by recording event-related potentials (ERPs). Subjects prepared meaningful or meaningless actions with objects and made a semantic categorization response before executing the action. Words presented could be either congruent or incongruent with respect to the goal of the action. Preparation of meaningful actions elicited a larger anterior N400 for words incongruent to the present action goal as compared to congruent words, while no N400 effect was found when subjects prepared meaningless actions. These findings indicate that the preparation of meaningful actions with objects is accompanied by the activation of semantic information representing the usual action goals associated with those objects.