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Where is the action? Action sentence processing in Parkinson's disease
Leonardo Fernandino1, Lisa L Conant, Jeffrey R Binder
1Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Center for Imaging Research, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA. lfernandino@mcw.edu
Neuropsychologia
|April 30, 2013
Summary
Parkinson's disease patients show impaired understanding of action-related sentences, suggesting motor system involvement in processing both literal and figurative language. This highlights the role of sensory-motor systems in semantic comprehension.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Linguistics
- Neurology
Background:
- Conceptual representation theory posits that action concepts are understood via motoric simulations involving brain motor networks.
- An embodied account extends this, suggesting figurative language (e.g., "grasping a concept") also relies on motoric simulations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if Parkinson's disease (PD), a motor system disorder, causes selective deficits in comprehending action-related sentences.
- To test the embodied theory's claim that figurative action language comprehension depends on motoric simulations.
Main Methods:
- Twenty PD patients and 21 age-matched controls completed a sentence comprehension task.
- Sentences were categorized as literal action, non-idiomatic metaphoric action, idiomatic action, or abstract.
- The same hand/arm action verbs were used across the three action-related conditions.
Main Results:
- PD patients, unlike controls, exhibited slower response times for literal and idiomatic action sentences compared to abstract sentences.
- This indicates a specific difficulty in processing action-related language in individuals with motor system impairment.
Conclusions:
- Sensory-motor systems play a functional role in semantic processing, including the comprehension of figurative action language.
- The findings support the embodied cognition hypothesis regarding the processing of action-related semantics.
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