Expertise and its embodiment: Examining the impact of sensorimotor skill expertise on the representation of action-related text

Abstract

In two experiments, we explored how novice and expert athletes represent the everyday and sportspecific objects and actions that they read about. Novice and expert ice hockey players (Experiment 1) and football players (Experiment 2) read sentences describing everyday or sport-specific situations and then judged whether a pictured item (either matching the action implied in the previous sentence or not) was mentioned in the preceding sentence. The sentences in Experiment 1 consisted of everyday and hockey-specific scenarios. The sentences in Experiment 2 depicted football scenarios implying football-specific or non-football-specific actions anyone might perform. Everyone responded most quickly to items that matched the sentence-implied actions for everyday and non-sport-specific actions. Only athletes showed this effect for their respective sport-specific scenarios. Differentiating between the same item in different action orientations is thought to be driven by embodied knowledge containing the sensorimotor characteristics of what one is reading about. We show that possessing this type of representation depends on experience interacting with objects and performing the actions in question.

Sports experience changes the neural processing of action language

“…To answer this question, ice-hockey players (professional and intercollegiate players; n ϭ 12), fans (extensive hockey viewing, but no playing experience; n ϭ 8), and novices (no ice-hockey playing/viewing experience; n ϭ 9) passively listened to sentences describing ice-hockey actions or everyday actions during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and then performed a language task outside the scanner that gauged their understanding of the heard scenarios (13)(14)(15). In this postscan comprehension task, subjects listened to sentences describing ice-hockey actions (e.g., ''The hockey player finished the shot'') and everyday actions (e.g., ''The individual pushed the door bell'').…”

“…Trials of interest were those that required ''yes'' responses [i.e., (i) and (ii) above]. If individuals comprehend the actions described in the sentences (13)(14)(15)(16), responses should be facilitated for pictured individuals whose actions match those implied in the sentence relative to those that do not. We termed this index of comprehension the action-match effect.…”

When meaning matters, look but don’t touch: The effects of posture on reading

“…Furthermore, there are known interactions between the hands and language processing, as can be observed through gesturing in prelinguistic children (Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005) and through sign language (Goldin-Meadow, 2006). Finally, comprehension of action language may rely on the activation of the comprehender's own motor system (Fischer & Zwaan, 2008;Holt & Beilock, 2006). Not only can hand actions affect what we see, therefore; they may also play a key role in language acquisition, comprehension, and communication.…”

The midwife case: Do they “walk the talk”?

“…Holt and Beilock 2006). The linguistic complexity of a dialogue, for example, in the imitation game, which attempt to reproduce everyday dialogues, may conceal irregularities in the use of language and blur the identity of the contributory expert.…”