Effects of verb-action congruence on sensorimotor processing of goal-directed actions in two- year-olds: A technical report

Abstract

Language and action share a common processing system, namely the sensorimotor system. Sensorimotor activity is associated with action prediction and action-verb processing already early during verb acquisition. Action verbs can have a positive effect on action prediction, if the action verb matches the subsequently perceived action. However, it is yet unclear if semantic congruence between the action verb and the action drives this effect, or rather effector-limb congruence (i.e., both the action verb and the action imply an action that is, for instance, performed with the hand). The current study investigated whether semantic congruence between an action verb and an action, compared to semantic incongruence, has different effects on action perception. We presented two-year-olds with sentences comprising action verbs, which either corresponded semantically to a subsequently observed action or not. To assess sensorimotor activity we measured the suppression of the mu and the beta rhythm by means of electroencephalography (EEG). Results are mixed. On the one hand semantic congruence did not affect mu suppression during action perception in toddlers who had all action verbs in their expressive vocabulary. On the other hand, the group of toddlers who did not have all action verbs in their expressive vocabulary did show a difference in mu suppression. In contrast to the mu band, the beta band revealed a power difference during action perception for toddlers who had all action verbs in their expressive vocabulary, but not for the other group.