The role of motor system in action-related language comprehension in L1 and L2: An fMRI study

First and Second Language at Hand: A Chronometric Transcranial-Magnetic Stimulation Study on Semantic and Motor Resonance

“…Still, we cannot exclude the role of other afferent connections to the motor cortex (apparently, only L2 processing-dependent) during the task. This result is in line with the larger activation of motor areas during L2 compared to L1 processing found in the fMRI studies by Rüschemeyer, Zysset, and Friederici (2006) and by Tian et al (2020). Rüschemeyer et al (2006) attributed the involvement of motor-related areas to the cost of covert foreign articulation.…”

“…Zhang et al (2020) showed different connectivity patterns for L2 speakers, who recruited a less integrated network to perform semantic judgments compared to L1 speakers. Tian et al (2020) reported larger activation in motor areas for L2 when reading phrases with different abstraction levels. In their recently published EEG study, Birba et al (2020) investigated L1 and L2 embodiment in action and non-action-laden narratives, and, despite showing motor-related connectivity in L2, they could not show differential activation between the two types of texts in L2.…”

“…This is not the first study to show that both motor and nonmotor verbs had a similar impact on the motor cortex. For example, Tian et al (2020) found motor involvement for literal, metaphoric, and abstract sentence processing, even if with decremental tendency. Other examples of weak motor resonance can be found in Papeo et al's (2011) study, where motor facilitation was found for L1 action versus non-action verbs when conjugated at the first person but not at the third person, or in Birba et al's study (2020), where motorrelated connectivity was found for both action and nonaction-laden narratives during L2 processing.…”

“…The task in the present experiment necessitated a deep semantic processing, and early lexico-semantic processing has been shown to occur between 130-150 and 200 msec after stimulus presentation (e.g., Amsel et al, 2013;Hauk et al, 2012;Chan et al, 2011;Pulvermüller et al, 2009). Still, some researchers claim that the motor cortex next to its main role of action planning and execution plays a role not only in lexico-semantic processing but also in other functions, such as cognitive control, inhibition, memory retrieval, and so forth that could take place at such early stages (see Tian et al, 2020, for a discussion on this topic). A future combined EEG and TMS study could clarify if at 125 msec the motor cortex serves the lexico-semantic access of motor versus nonmotor verbs, or if it assumes a more general cognitive role.…”

“…A possible reason for this difference is the fact that a late L2 is usually acquired in school setting, explicitly learned via L1, in a less interactive way and with less opportunities of integrating the sensorimotor experience as compared to the way an L1 is acquired (Macedonia, 2019;Adams, 2016;Dudschig, de la Vega, & Kaup, 2014;Yang & Li, 2012). Since then, two other fMRI studies (Tian et al, 2020;Zhang, Yang, Wang, & Li, 2020) have recently shown recruitment of sensorimotor regions during L2 processing, although with contrasting results. Zhang et al (2020) showed different connectivity patterns for L2 speakers, who recruited a less integrated network to perform semantic judgments compared to L1 speakers.…”