Motion-sensitive cortex and motion semantics in American Sign Language

McCullough, Stephen; Saygın, Ayşe Pınar; Korpics, Franco; Emmorey, Karen

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.06.029

Cited by 31 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Greater activation within medial SPL may reflect enhanced attention to the spatial configuration of the trajectories that indicated movement path in the picture (Vandenberghe, Molenberghs, & Gillebert, 2012; Vandenberghe, Gitelman, Parrish, & Mesulam, 2001). For location expressions, McCullough et al (2012) recently reported greater activation in left inferior parietal cortex (near the IPS) when ASL signers comprehended sentences containing “static” location classifier constructions (e.g., “The deer slept along the hillside,” in which a legged-classifier handshape is placed at a location in space representing the hillside) compared with matched ASL sentences with motion classifier constructions (e.g., “The deer walked along the hillside,” in which a legged-classifier handshape is moved along the location of the hillside in signing space). MacSweeney et al (2002) reported similar left parietal activation when users of BSL comprehended “topographic” sentences (sentences that expressed spatial relationships using classifier constructions and signing space) compared with “nontopographic” sentences.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Expression of movement path is spatially more complex, which might result in increase parietal involvement and might also recruit motion-sensitive brain regions (MT+). Comprehension of motion semantics encoded by ASL classifier constructions has been shown to activate MT+ to a greater extent than sentences with classifier constructions expressing static location information (McCullough, Saygin, Korpics, & Emmorey, 2012). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Biology of Linguistic Expression Impacts Neural Correlates for Spatial Language

Emmorey

McCullough

Mehta

et al. 2013

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Biological differences between signed and spoken languages may be most evident in the expression of spatial information. PET was used to investigate the neural substrates supporting the production of spatial language in American Sign Language as expressed by classifier constructions, in which handshape indicates object type and the location/motion of the hand iconically depicts the location/motion of a referent object. Deaf native signers performed a picture description task in which they overtly named objects or produced classifier constructions that varied in location, motion, or object type. In contrast to the expression of location and motion, the production of both lexical signs and object type classifier morphemes engaged left inferior frontal cortex and left inferior temporal cortex, supporting the hypothesis that unlike the location and motion components of a classifier construction, classifier handshapes are categorical morphemes that are retrieved via left hemisphere language regions. In addition, lexical signs engaged the anterior temporal lobes to a greater extent than classifier constructions, which we suggest reflects increased semantic processing required to name individual objects compared with simply indicating the type of object. Both location and motion classifier constructions engaged bilateral superior parietal cortex, with some evidence that the expression of static locations differentially engaged the left intraparietal sulcus. We argue that bilateral parietal activation reflects the biological underpinnings of sign language. To express spatial information, signers must transform visual–spatial representations into a body-centered reference frame and reach toward target locations within signing space.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Biology of Linguistic Expression Impacts Neural Correlates for Spatial Language

Emmorey

McCullough

Mehta

et al. 2013

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Some recent studies have found responses to sentences and passages describing motion events in MT/MST and the right STS (Tettamanti et al, 2005; Saygin et al, 2009; Deen and McCarthy, 2010; McCullough et al, 2012). These data raise the possibly that even early visual motion areas respond to rich motion language such as sentences and passages, but not to single words with motion features.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

People can understand descriptions of motion without activating visual motion brain regions

Dravida¹,

Saxe²,

Bedny³

2013

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

What is the relationship between our perceptual and linguistic neural representations of the same event? We approached this question by asking whether visual perception of motion and understanding linguistic depictions of motion rely on the same neural architecture. The same group of participants took part in two language tasks and one visual task. In task 1, participants made semantic similarity judgments with high motion (e.g., “to bounce”) and low motion (e.g., “to look”) words. In task 2, participants made plausibility judgments for passages describing movement (“A centaur hurled a spear … ”) or cognitive events (“A gentleman loved cheese …”). Task 3 was a visual motion localizer in which participants viewed animations of point-light walkers, randomly moving dots, and stationary dots changing in luminance. Based on the visual motion localizer we identified classic visual motion areas of the temporal (MT/MST and STS) and parietal cortex (inferior and superior parietal lobules). We find that these visual cortical areas are largely distinct from neural responses to linguistic depictions of motion. Motion words did not activate any part of the visual motion system. Motion passages produced a small response in the right superior parietal lobule, but none of the temporal motion regions. These results suggest that (1) as compared to words, rich language stimuli such as passages are more likely to evoke mental imagery and more likely to affect perceptual circuits and (2) effects of language on the visual system are more likely in secondary perceptual areas as compared to early sensory areas. We conclude that language and visual perception constitute distinct but interacting systems.

show abstract

“…These patterns are consistent with hypothesis that action ideas evoke neural activity in and around structures sensitive to visual motion. Pictures of actions, semantic judgments of action pictures, action verbs, and sentences describing action events activate human MT+ and adjacent areas (Kable et al, 2005; Kourtzi & Kanwisher, 2000; McCullough, Saygin, Korpics, & Emmorey, 2012; Papeo & Lingnau, 2015). We previously argued that human MT+ serves as a perceptual point of entry for action semantics with levels of abstraction being instantiated more anteriorly from visual motion areas (Kable et al, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural bases of action abstraction

Quandt

Lee

Chatterjee

2017

Biological Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There has been recent debate over whether actions are processed primarily by means of motor simulation or cognitive semantics. The current study investigated how abstract action concepts are processed in the brain, independent of the format in which they are presented. Eighteen healthy adult participants viewed different actions (e.g., diving, boxing) in the form of verbs and schematic action pictograms while functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was collected. We predicted that sensorimotor and semantic brain regions would show similar patterns of neural activity for different instances of the same action (e.g., diving pictogram and the word ‘diving’). A representational similarity analysis revealed posterior temporal and sensorimotor regions where specific action concepts were encoded, independent of the format of presentation. These results reveal the neural instantiations of abstract action concepts, and demonstrate that both sensorimotor and semantic systems are involved in processing actions.

show abstract

Motion-sensitive cortex and motion semantics in American Sign Language

Cited by 31 publications

References 38 publications

The Biology of Linguistic Expression Impacts Neural Correlates for Spatial Language

The Biology of Linguistic Expression Impacts Neural Correlates for Spatial Language

People can understand descriptions of motion without activating visual motion brain regions

Neural bases of action abstraction

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About