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 - 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 - GEN A1 - Gottwald, Janna M. A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Pollatos, Olga T1 - Good is up-spatial metaphors in action observation T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Positive objects or actions are associated with physical highness, whereas negative objects or actions are related to physical lowness. Previous research suggests that metaphorical connection ("good is up" or "bad is down") between spatial experience and evaluation of objects is grounded in actual experience with the body. Prior studies investigated effects of spatial metaphors with respect to verticality of either static objects or self-performed actions. By presenting videos of object placements, the current three experiments combined vertically-located stimuli with observation of vertically-directed actions. As expected, participants' ratings of emotionally-neutral objects were systematically influenced by the observed vertical positioning, that is, ratings were more positive for objects that were observed being placed up as compared to down. Moreover, effects were slightly more pronounced for "bad is down," because only the observed downward, but not the upward, action led to different ratings as compared to a medium-positioned action. Last, some ratings were even affected by observing only the upward/downward action, without seeing the final vertical placement of the object. Thus, both, a combination of observing a vertically-directed action and seeing a vertically-located object, and observing a vertically-directed action alone, affected participants' evaluation of emotional valence of the involved object. The present findings expand the relevance of spatial metaphors to action observation, thereby giving new impetus to embodied-cognition research. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 422 KW - embodied cognition KW - spatial metaphors KW - emotional valence KW - action observation KW - action perception Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-406281 IS - 422 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gottwald, Janna M. A1 - Elsner, Birgit A1 - Pollatos, Olga T1 - Good is up-spatial metaphors in action observation JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Positive objects or actions are associated with physical highness, whereas negative objects or actions are related to physical lowness. Previous research suggests that metaphorical connection ("good is up" or "bad is down") between spatial experience and evaluation of objects is grounded in actual experience with the body. Prior studies investigated effects of spatial metaphors with respect to verticality of either static objects or self-performed actions. By presenting videos of object placements, the current three experiments combined vertically-located stimuli with observation of vertically-directed actions. As expected, participants' ratings of emotionally-neutral objects were systematically influenced by the observed vertical positioning, that is, ratings were more positive for objects that were observed being placed up as compared to down. Moreover, effects were slightly more pronounced for "bad is down," because only the observed downward, but not the upward, action led to different ratings as compared to a medium-positioned action. Last, some ratings were even affected by observing only the upward/downward action, without seeing the final vertical placement of the object. Thus, both, a combination of observing a vertically-directed action and seeing a vertically-located object, and observing a vertically-directed action alone, affected participants' evaluation of emotional valence of the involved object. The present findings expand the relevance of spatial metaphors to action observation, thereby giving new impetus to embodied-cognition research. KW - embodied cognition KW - spatial metaphors KW - emotional valence KW - action observation KW - action perception Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01605 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 6 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stadler, Waltraud A1 - Ott, Derek V. M. A1 - Springer, Anne A1 - Schubotz, Ricarda I. A1 - Schütz-Bosbach, Simone A1 - Prinz, Wolfgang T1 - Repetitive TMS suggests a role of the human dorsal premotor cortex in action prediction JF - Frontiers in human neuroscienc N2 - Predicting the actions of other individuals is crucial for our daily interactions. Recent evidence suggests that the prediction of object-directed arm and full-body actions employs the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd). Thus, the neural substrate involved in action control may also be essential for action prediction. Here, we aimed to address this issue and hypothesized that disrupting the PMd impairs action prediction. Using fMRI-guided coil navigation, rTMS (five pulses, 10Hz) was applied over the left PMd and over the vertex (control region) while participants observed everyday actions in video clips that were transiently occluded for 1s. The participants detected manipulations in the time course of occluded actions, which required them to internally predict the actions during occlusion. To differentiate between functional roles that the PMd could play in prediction, rTMS was either delivered at occluder-onset (TMS-early), affecting the initiation of action prediction, or 300 ms later during occlusion(TMS-late), affecting the maintenance of anongoing prediction. TMS-early over the left PMd produced more prediction errors than TMS-early over the vertex. TMS-late had no effect on prediction performance, suggesting that the left PMd might be involved particularly during the initiation of internally guided action prediction but may play a subordinate role in maintaining ongoing prediction. These findings open a new perspective on the role of the left PMd in action prediction which is in line with its functions in action control and in cognitive tasks. In the discussion, there levance of the left PMd for integrating external action parameters with the observer's motor repertoire is emphasized. Overall, the results are in line with the notion that premotor functions are employed in both action control and action observation. KW - action observation KW - prediction KW - occlusion KW - premotor KW - PMd KW - transcranial magnetic stimulation Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00020 SN - 1662-5161 VL - 6 IS - 2 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER -