Dissociation between Semantic Representations for Motion and Action Verbs: Evidence from Patients with Left Hemisphere Lesions

Taylor, Lawrence, Evans, Carys, Greer, Jo, Senior, Carl, Coventry, Kenny and Ietswaart, Magdalena (2017) Dissociation between Semantic Representations for Motion and Action Verbs: Evidence from Patients with Left Hemisphere Lesions. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 11. p. 35. ISSN 1662-5161

[img]
Preview
Text
Taylor_et_al_2017.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

Download (1MB) | Preview
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00035

Abstract

This multiple single case study contrasted left hemisphere stroke patients (N = 6) to healthy age-matched control participants (N = 15) on their understanding of action (e.g., holding, clenching) and motion verbs (e.g., crumbling, flowing). The tasks required participants to correctly identify the matching verb or associated picture. Dissociations on action and motion verb content depending on lesion site were expected. As predicted for verbs containing an action and/or motion content, modified t-tests confirmed selective deficits in processing motion verbs in patients with lesions involving posterior parietal and lateral occipitotemporal cortex. In contrast, deficits in verbs describing motionless actions were found in patients with more anterior lesions sparing posterior parietal and lateral occipitotemporal cortex. These findings support the hypotheses that semantic representations for action and motion are behaviorally and neuro-anatomically dissociable. The findings clarify the differential and critical role of perceptual and motor regions in processing modality-specific semantic knowledge as opposed to a supportive but not necessary role. We contextualize these results within theories from both cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience that make claims over the role of sensory and motor information in semantic representation.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: neuropsychology, left hemisphere, lateral occipitotemporal cortex, affordances, embodied cognition, semantic representation, aphasia
Subjects: C800 Psychology
Department: Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User: Dr Jo Greer
Date Deposited: 27 Feb 2017 14:27
Last Modified: 01 Aug 2021 05:53
URI: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/29885

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics