Grasping Ideas with the Motor System: Semantic Somatotopy in Idiom Comprehension
Open accessAbstract
Single words and sentences referring to bodily actions activate the motor cortex. However, this semantic grounding of concrete language does not address the critical question whether the sensory-motor system contributes to the processing of abstract meaning and thought. We examined functional magnetic resonance imaging activation to idioms and literal sentences including arm- and leg-related action words. A common left fronto-temporal network was engaged in sentence reading, with idioms yielding relatively stronger activity in (pre)frontal and middle temporal cortex. Crucially, somatotopic activation along the motor strip, in central and precentral cortex, was elicited by idiomatic and literal sentences, reflecting the body part reference of the words embedded in the sentences. Semantic somatotopy was most pronounced after sentence ending, thus reflecting sentence-level processing rather than that of single words. These results indicate that semantic representations grounded in the sensory-motor system play a role in the composition of sentence-level meaning, even in the case of idioms.
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The impact of VR for language recovery is in line with embodied theory, which considers language as represented in a multimodal dimension in which word semantics are also made of sensorimotor properties.
“The impact of VR for language recovery is in line with recent proposals from the embodied theory which considers language as represented in a multimodal dimension in which word semantics are also made of sensorimotor properties [62–68].”
From Conversational Therapy through Semi-Immersive Virtual Reality Environments for Language Recovery and Psychological Well-Being in Post Stroke Aphasia (2020) · cites this paper as [63]
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- Authors
- Boulenger, V., Hauk, O., & Pulvermuller, F.
- Affiliations
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (GB)
- ORCID
- Hauk, O.
- Venue
- Cerebral Cortex
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2008-12-09
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1905-1914
- ISSN
- 1047-3211 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2199
- PMC
- PMC2705699
- OpenAlex
- W2140386255
- Cited by
- 573
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 53 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 39 · 2019: 68 · 2018: 39 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 33 · 2015: 30 · 2014: 35 · 2013: 44 · 2012: 27
- FWCI
- 30.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Cerebral Cortex (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Fondation Fyssen
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
- Medical Research Council (U1055.04.003.00003.01, U.1055.04.003.00001.01)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Language, Metaphor, and Cognition
- Keywords
- idioms, idiom comprehension, motor cortex activation, body-part words, semantic grounding, sensorimotor system, abstract meaning, action words
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Language, Language Tests, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Motor Cortex, Semantics, Comprehension
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