Moving the hands and feet specifically impairs working memory for arm- and leg-related action words

What can autism teach us about the role of sensorimotor systems in higher cognition? New clues from studies on language, action semantics, and abstract emotional concept processing

“…Ultimately, the stronger connections in the entire population (which are likely to include neurons in other areas, too) yields activity maintenance after stimulation, due to reverberant activation supported by the strong population-internal links. This explains the "emergence" of higher cognitive processes, such as working memory (Shebani & Pulvermü ller, 2013), from sensory and motor mechanisms. Simulation studies bolster this kind of information mixing, leading to integration of specific information about actions and perceptions and, ultimately, "neural reuse" of the same neurons for cognition.…”

“…Fourth, overt movement or stimulation of these motor areas has a causal effect on simultaneous processing of specific types of action words. Vice versa, action word processing may impact on specific motor mechanisms, with effects visible in behaviour and in electrophysiological brain recordings 2 Fischer & Zwaan, 2008;Glenberg & Kaschak, 2003;Ibanez et al, 2012;Pulvermü ller, Hauk, Nikulin, & Ilmoniemi, 2005;Rueschemeyer, Lindemann, van Elk, & Bekkering, 2009;Schomers & Pulvermü ller, 2016;Schomers, Kirilina, Weigand, Bajbouj, & Pulvermü ller, 2015;Shebani & Pulvermü ller, 2013). Fifth, and finally, movement disorders and clinical impairments to motor systems are associated with specific processing impairments or abnormalities for action-related words which call on action knowledge in the retrieval of their meaning (Bak & Chandran, 2012;Boulenger et al, 2008;Cardona et al, 2014;Cotelli et al, 2006;García & Ibañez, 2014;Grossman et al, 2008;Kemmerer, 2015;Neininger & Pulvermü ller, 2001Pulvermü ller et al, 2010).…”

Motivated Cognition: Effects of Reward, Emotion, and Other Motivational Factors Across a Variety of Cognitive Domains

“…In the opposite direction, motor congruency of objects and pictures of objects, such as the side of a handle can influence response time and other measures in cognitive tasks (Brouillet et al, 2015;Buccino et al, 2009;Chum et al, 2007;Handy et al, 2003;Marino et al, 2014;Oakes & Onyper, 2017;Tucker & Ellis, 1998). Even more broadly, words and pictures representing objects varying in functionality can influence attention, semantic processing, and memory (Hauk et al, 2004;Madan et al, 2016;Madan & Singhal, 2012a;Montefinese et al, 2013;Pulvermüller, 2005;Shebani & Pulvermüller, 2013;Tousignant & Pexman, 2012;Witt et al, 2010). These effects are particularly interesting given debates regarding the role of evoked motor functionality information in response to pictures and words, as opposed to physical objects (Skiba & Snow, 2016;Snow et al, 2011Snow et al, , 2014Squires et al, 2016;Wilson & Golonka, 2013).…”

DiViDu – An Open Source Solution for Dual Task Experiments with Integrated Divided Visual Field Paradigm

“…[8], reading [5], naming [12], verbal fluency [6] and verbal memory tasks [7]. Similarly, the complexity of the motor task highly various between the experiments including only one [6] or both hands [7].…”

“…Thus, they help to understand higher cognitive functions and more specifically the lateralisation of the human brain. To explore the interaction of the motor and the language system, different studies investigate the mutual influence of a language task with different semantic word categories and a simultaneously performed motor task [3][4][5][6][7][8]. However, the comparison of the results is challenging due to various experimental settings, groups of participants, a large variety of language tasks and task languages as well as differing complexity and type of motor tasks.…”