TY - JOUR A1 - Gianelli, Claudia A1 - Kühne, Katharina A1 - Lo Presti, Sara A1 - Mencaraglia, Silvia A1 - Dalla Volta, Riccardo T1 - Action processing in the motor system BT - Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) evidence of shared mechanisms in the visual and linguistic modalities JF - Brain and cognition : a journal of experimental and clinical research N2 - In two experiments, we compared the dynamics of corticospinal excitability when processing visually or linguistically presented tool-oriented hand actions in native speakers and sequential bilinguals. In a third experiment we used the same procedure to test non-motor, low-level stimuli, i.e. scrambled images and pseudo-words. Stimuli were presented in sequence: pictures (tool + tool-oriented hand action or their scrambled counterpart) and words (tool noun + tool-action verb or pseudo-words). Experiment 1 presented German linguistic stimuli to native speakers, while Experiment 2 presented English stimuli to non-natives. Experiment 3 tested Italian native speakers. Single-pulse trascranial magnetic stimulation (spTMS) was applied to the left motor cortex at five different timings: baseline, 200 ms after tool/noun onset, 150, 350 and 500 ms after hand/verb onset with motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) recorded from the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) and abductor digiti minimi (ADM) muscles. We report strong similarities in the dynamics of corticospinal excitability across the visual and linguistic modalities. MEPs' suppression started as early as 150 ms and lasted for the duration of stimulus presentation (500 ms). Moreover, we show that this modulation is absent for stimuli with no motor content. Overall, our study supports the notion of a core, overarching system of action semantics shared by different modalities. KW - TMS KW - motor cortex KW - action observation KW - action language KW - motor KW - inhibition KW - motor-evoked potentials Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2019.105510 SN - 0278-2626 SN - 1090-2147 VL - 139 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - GEN A1 - Gianelli, Claudia A1 - Dalla Volta, Riccardo T1 - Does listening to action-related sentences modulate the activity of the motor system? BT - Replication of a combined TMS and behavioral study N2 - The neurophysiological and behavioral correlates of action-related language processing have been debated for long time. A precursor in this field was the study by Buccino et al. (2005) combining transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and behavioral measures (reaction times, RTs) to study the effect of listening to hand- and foot-related sentences. In the TMS experiment, the authors showed a decrease of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) recorded from hand muscles when processing hand-related verbs as compared to foot-related verbs. Similarly, MEPs recorded from leg muscles decreased when participants processed foot-related as compared to hand-related verbs. In the behavioral experiment, using the same stimuli and a semantic decision task the authors found slower RTs when the participants used the body effector (hand or foot) involved in the actual execution of the action expressed by the presented verb to give their motor responses. These findings were interpreted as an interference effect due to a simultaneous involvement of the motor system in both a language and a motor task. Our replication aimed to enlarge the sample size and replicate the findings with higher statistical power. The TMS experiment showed a significant modulation of hand MEPs, but in the sense of a motor facilitation when processing hand-related verbs. On the contrary, the behavioral experiment did not show significant results. The results are discussed within the general debate on the time-course of the modulation of motor cortex during implicit and explicit language processing and in relation to the studies on action observation/understanding. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - paper 272 KW - action language KW - motor system KW - TMS KW - motor resonance KW - interference KW - replication Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-75173 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gianelli, Claudia A1 - Dalla Volta, Riccardo T1 - Does listening to action-related sentences modulate the activity of the motor system? BT - Replication of a combined TMS and behavioral study JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - The neurophysiological and behavioral correlates of action-related language processing have been debated for long time. A precursor in this field was the study by Buccino et al. (2005) combining transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and behavioral measures (reaction times, RTs) to study the effect of listening to hand- and foot-related sentences. In the TMS experiment, the authors showed a decrease of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) recorded from hand muscles when processing hand-related verbs as compared to foot-related verbs. Similarly, MEPs recorded from leg muscles decreased when participants processed foot-related as compared to hand-related verbs. In the behavioral experiment, using the same stimuli and a semantic decision task the authors found slower RTs when the participants used the body effector (hand or foot) involved in the actual execution of the action expressed by the presented verb to give their motor responses. These findings were interpreted as an interference effect due to a simultaneous involvement of the motor system in both a language and a motor task. Our replication aimed to enlarge the sample size and replicate the findings with higher statistical power. The TMS experiment showed a significant modulation of hand MEPs, but in the sense of a motor facilitation when processing hand-related verbs. On the contrary, the behavioral experiment did not show significant results. The results are discussed within the general debate on the time-course of the modulation of motor cortex during implicit and explicit language processing and in relation to the studies on action observation/understanding. KW - action language KW - motor system KW - TMS KW - motor resonance KW - interference KW - replication Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01511 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 5 SP - 8 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - GEN A1 - Gianelli, Claudia A1 - Gentilucci, Maurizio T1 - Editorial: Reaching to Grasp Cognition: Analyzing Motor Behavior to Investigate Social Interactions T2 - Frontiers in psychology KW - kinematics KW - social cognition KW - action observation KW - imitation KW - joint action KW - complementary actions KW - cooperation and competition KW - embodied cognition Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01236 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 9 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gianelli, Claudia A1 - Marzocchi, Michele A1 - Borghi, Anna M. T1 - Grasping the Agent’s Perspective BT - a Kinematics Investigation of Linguistic Perspective in Italian and German JF - Frontiers in psychology KW - perspective taking KW - action KW - language comprehension KW - motor chains KW - motor system KW - motor resonance KW - pronouns KW - action verbs Y1 - 0107 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00042 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 8 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Gianelli, Claudia A1 - Ranzini, Mariagrazia A1 - Marzocchi, Michele A1 - Micheli, Leticia Rettore A1 - Borghi, Anna M. T1 - Influence of numerical magnitudes on the free choice of an object position T2 - Cognitive processing : international quarterly of cognitive science Y1 - 2012 SN - 1612-4782 VL - 13 SP - S41 EP - S41 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gianelli, Claudia A1 - Ranzini, Mariagrazia A1 - Marzocchi, Michele A1 - Micheli, Leticia Rettore A1 - Borghi, Anna M. T1 - Influence of numerical magnitudes on the free choice of an object position JF - Cognitive processing : international quarterly of cognitive science N2 - The link between numerical magnitude and mechanisms of spatial orienting has been underlined in an increasing number of studies. Similarly, the relationship between numerical magnitude and grasping actions has started to be investigated. The present study focuses on the influence of numerical magnitude processing in the free choice of the position of an object. Participants were presented with a digit (1-9 without 5) and were required to decide whether it was smaller or larger than 5. Then, they had to grasp a small cube and change its position before vocally responding "higher" or "lower". Results showed that in the initial phase of the grasp movement, the grip aperture was modulated by the numerical magnitude. Moreover, participants shifted the position of the cube more leftward with smaller digits compared with larger ones, and they tended to position the object closer to themselves with smaller digits compared with larger ones. These results extend the previous findings indicating that the processing of magnitude is tightly related to the mechanisms of spatial orienting that subserve action execution. KW - Spatial-numerical associations KW - Magnitude processing KW - Hand kinematics KW - Embodied cognition Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-012-0483-7 SN - 1612-4782 VL - 13 SP - S185 EP - S188 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kühne, Katharina A1 - Gianelli, Claudia T1 - Is Embodied Cognition Bilingual? BT - current evidence and perspectives of the embodied cognition approach to bilingual language processing JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Accumulating behavioral and neurophysiological evidence supports the idea of language being grounded in sensorimotor processes, with indications of a functional role of motor, sensory and emotional systems in processing both concrete and abstract linguistic concepts. However, most of the available studies focused on native language speakers (L1), with only a limited number of investigations testing embodied language processing in the case of a second language (L2). In this paper we review the available evidence on embodied effects in L2 and discuss their possible integration into existing models of linguistic processing in L1 and L2. Finally, we discuss possible avenues for future research towards an integrated model of L1 and L2 sensorimotor and emotional grounding. KW - embodied language KW - grounding KW - sensorimotor KW - native language KW - second language Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00108 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 10 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gianelli, Claudia A1 - Lugli, Luisa A1 - Baroni, Giulia A1 - Nicoletti, Roberto A1 - Borghi, Anna M. T1 - The impact of social context and language comprehension on behaviour - a kinematic investigation JF - PLoS one N2 - We investigated whether and how comprehending sentences that describe a social context influences our motor behaviour. Our stimuli were sentences that referred to objects having different connotations (e.g., attractive/ugly vs smooth/prickly) and that could be directed towards the self or towards "another person" target (e The object is ugly/smooth. Bring it to you/Give it to another person"). Participants judged whether each sentence was sensible or non-sensible by moving the mouse towards or away from their body. Mouse movements were analysed according to behavioral and kinematics parameters. In order to enhance the social meaning of the linguistic stimuli, participants performed the task either individually (Individual condition) or in a social setting, in co-presence with the experimenter. The experimenter could either act as a mere observer (Social condition) or as a confederate, interacting with participants in an off-line modality at the end of task execution (Joint condition), Results indicated that the different roles taken by the experimenter affected motor behaviour and are discussed within an embodied approach to language processing and joint actions. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0085151 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 8 IS - 12 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER -