A large number of recent behavioural studies have established that processing linguistic descriptions of motor actions affect overt motor behaviour. For instance, when participants are asked to make sensibility judgments on sentences that describe action toward the body (“Mark gave the book to yo

Aravena, P

Cheylus, A

Delevoye, Y

Deprez, V

Frak, V

Nazir, T

Paulignan, Y

English

Archipel - Université du Québec à Montréal

Aravena, Pia (1), Delevoye, Yvonne (3), Frak, Victor (2), Deprez, Viviane, (1), Paulignan, Yves. (1), Cheylus, Anne (1), Nazir, Tatjana (1). 
 1. L2C2-Institut des Sciences Cognitives, CNRS/UCBL, Bron, France. 2. Institut de Réadaptation Gingras-Lindsay de Montréal, Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire en réadaptation du Montréal métropolitain, 
Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada. 3. Laboratoire URECA, UFR de Psychologie, Université Lille Nord de France, Lille, France.      
 
INTRODUCTION 
 Behavioural studies have established that processing linguistic descriptions of 
motor actions affect overt motor behaviour. Yet, the fact that behavioural 
paradigms typically capture language-induced motor effects at latencies that are 
beyond latencies for lexical access is frequently used to challenge this 
assumption. The development of simpler techniques adapted for measuring 
online motor-language interaction is needed. In the present study we aim to 
introduce a novel experimental tool, a grip-force sensor (ATI mini-40) that allows 
online measures of the effects of language processing on motor behaviour.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Participants 
Participants were French undergraduate students (Mean age= 20.6 years; range: 18 to 35 years) . All participants were right-handed as 
defined by the Edinburgh Inventory (Oldfield, 1971) with normal hearing and no reported history of psychiatric or neurological disease. 
Twenty-three subjects (11 females) participated in Study 1, and seven-teen (9 females) in Study 2. 
 
Apparatus 
In order to quantify online measures of subtle grip force modulation, we used a grip-force sensor (ATI mini-40) with a 3-axis load cell (see 
Figure 1). 
 
 
Procedure 
Participants were asked to hold the grip-force sensor with their right hand (the thumb, index and middle fingers rest on the load cell 
throughout the experiment) (see Figure 1 and 2).  
In Study 1 participants’ listen passively to spoken sentences that contained action or non-action target words. In Study 2 action words 
were additionally presented within affirmative or negative sentences (see table 1). Participants’ task was to silently count how many 
sentences contained the name of a country.  
In both studies, action or non-action target words were also presented without sentence context as a list of single words. Here, 
participants were requested to simply count how often a pre-determined target word occurred in the list.  
Fig 1: (A) Grip-force sensor  (ATI mini-40). (B) 3-axis of load cell.  (C) Hand 
position throughout the experiment. 
 A 
 A 
A B  C  
Fig. 2: Experimental setting 
Category Sentence 
Affirmative Action Sentence  
(Study 1 and 2) 
Dans la salle de sport, Fiona soulève des haltères 
Negative Action Sentence  
(Study 2) 
A l’intérieur de l’avion, Laure ne soulève pas son bagage 
Non Action Sentence     
(Study 1 and 2) 
Dans la montagne, Léonard voit l’aigle qui plane 
Stimuli 
A total of 115 French sentences served as stimuli (see Table 1). Ten of these sentences contained the name of a country. The remaining 
105 critical sentences contained either one of 35 target-nouns or one of 35 target-verbs, controlled for frequency, number of letters, 
number of syllables, bi- and trigram frequency. All verbs denote actions performed with the hand or arm (e.g., scratch, throw) while 
nouns referred to  concrete entities without specific motor associations. The 35 target-verbs were embedded in affirmative as well as 
negative context. 
Table 1. Example of stimuli used in the experiment 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 METHODS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The greater force observed during manual action verb processing suggests that language-induced motor activity can involve later states of 
a motor performance, recruiting cortico-spinal circuits as well as muscular fibres. Indeed, passive listening was sufficient to detect partial 
activation of executive stages of a motor performance pattern, although no motor task associated to the linguistic process was required.  
To our knowledge, this is the first time that a demonstration of this phenomenon is made.  
 
Crucially, we  have observed that action sentence polarity (negative or affirmative) had an effect on the  grip-force since negative sentences 
did not increase grip force amplitude, suggesting that sentential negation might affect the recruitment of motor representations of the 
negated action (see also Tetamantti et al., 2008; Tomasino et al., 2010). 
 
Overall, these findings demonstrate that this novel experimental paradigm can be profitably used to study the online processing of the 
interaction between the motor system and language in a very simple and ecological manner.  More important, we propose this novel 
technique as an online monitoring-tool for elucidating new aspects of the interplay between motor and linguistic systems. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Significant differences between Action vs Non Action words [F 
(1,14) = 5.31; p<0.04] were observed in the previously defined 
time window of 188-272 ms after onset. Grip force amplitude was 
enhanced by action words compared to non-action words (see 
Fig. 6). 
The Study 1 was used to determine the time window within which differences in grip-force between action and non-action words and 
sentences became significant: A paired one-tailed t-test (by millisecond) from 0ms to 800ms after critical word onset was performed. In 
sentence context continuous significant differences were observed between 270-500 ms after stimulus onset. For isolated words, this 
window ranged from 188-272 ms. 
 
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) over the previously defined time window 
revealed a significant effect of target word condition [F (2,32) = 4.55; 
p<0.02]. Post hoc comparison yield significant differences between 
Affirmative Action vs Non Action (p<0.02); Affirmative Action vs 
Negative Action (p<0.04). No differences between Negative Action and 
No Action were obtained (p=0.5). Hence, Grip-force amplitude was 
enhanced when listening to affirmative action sentence only (see Fig. 5). 
        Study 2 : Sentences 
 
Fig. 3: Time-window of significant differences between Grip-Force 
amplitudes for Action and Non-Action Sentences. 
Fig. 4: Time-window of significant differences between Grip-
Force amplitudes for Action and Non-Action single Words. 
-0,5
-0,4
-0,3
-0,2
-0,1
0
0,1
0,2
-400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
G
ri
p
-F
o
rc
e ms 
Affirmative Action
Negative Action
Non Action
-0,5
-0,4
-0,3
-0,2
-0,1
0
0,1
0,2
-400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
G
ri
p
-F
o
rc
e ms 
Non Action
Action
References 
Tettamanti, M., Manenti, R., Della Rosa, P. A., Falini, A., Perani, D., Cappa, S. F., and Moro, A. 2008. Negation in the brain: modulating action 
representations. Neuroimage 43, 358–367 
Tomasino, B., P.H. Weiss, and G.R. Fink. 2010. To Move or Not to Move: Imperatives Modulate Action-related Verb Processing in the Motor 
System. Neuroscience 169, no. 1: 246-258. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
RESULTS 
 
Fig. 5: Action Sentence and sentence Polarity Effects  Fig. 5: Action words Effect. 
        Study 1 : Exploratory Data Analysis 
 
 
        Study 2 :  Single Words 
 


Negation in the brain: modulating action representations.

Online monitoring of the impact of language processing on motor processes: prehensile grip-force measures during passive listening of manual action.

http://www.archipel.uqam.ca/4219/1/Pia_Aravena_poster_-_prehensil_motor_language.pdf

Online monitoring of the impact of language processing on motor processes: prehensile grip-force measures during passive listening of manual action.

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