Embodied representation of tool-use action verbs and hand action verbs: Evidence from a tone judgment task

Many studies have found that language comprehension involves sensory-motor system. However, the relationship between word form and embodied semantic representation still lacks evidence. The current fMRI study used Chinese tool-use action verbs, hand action verbs and a Mandarin lexical tone task to explore the issue. In the tone task, all verbs showed strong effects in hand motor areas. However, the contrasts between the hand action verbs and the tool-use action verbs yielded differences mainly in tone processing areas, and the hand action verbs had stronger effects. The ROI analyses indicated consistent result pattern with the contrast analyses. In short, these results revealed that word processing involves basic sensory-motor information automatically, whereas the fine grained information which distinguishes among different semantics can be hindered by the processing of word form.