The Participation Mechanism Of Motor Information In Language Cognition

Activation of motor information during language cognition is one of the important issues in the research of embodied language cognition.Initially,researchers mainly focused on the universality and specific conditions of this phenomenon,and obtained abundant experimental evidence.Afterwards,researchers discussed the participation mechanism of motor information in language cognition.However,related research did not achieve a consensus on the participation time and extent of motor information,the participation status of motor information,and the influence of participation degree of motor information on language cognition.The current study was based on the theory of moderate embodied language cognition,focused on contradictions and deficiencies in the previous research,explored the participation mechanism of motor information in language cognition through three studies,which included eight experiments.Study 1 explored the participation time and extent of motor information in language cognition through three experiments.Experiment 1 used a 4 word present time(100ms,150 ms,200ms,600ms)× 4 recognition word type(similar to word information,similar to word pronunciation,similar to motor information,irrelevant)mixed design,discussed the participation time and degree of motion information in language cognition.Experiment 2 balanced the total presentation time of the words under each time condition in Experiment 1.Experiments 1 and 2 showed that at the 100 ms time point,the motor information was less participation in language cognition,and was equivalent to the participation extent of the word information;at the 150 ms time point,the motor information was involved more in language cognition,which participation extent was slightly more than that of the word information.However,the difference between the two type information was significant under multiple accumulations condition but not under the condition which words were only presented once.At the time points of 200 ms and 600 ms,the motor information was significantly more involved in language cognition,and its participation extent was greater than that of the word information.Experiment 3 used a 3 word present time(100ms,150 ms,200ms)× 2 word frequency level(high,low)× 3 recognition word type(similar to word information,similar to motor information,irrelevant)mixed design,explored whether the word frequency information will affect the participation of motor information at different time points in language cognition.The results showed that the word frequency information would affect the participation of motor information by adjusting cognitive resources.Study 2 explored the participation status of motor information in language cognition through two experiments.Experiment 4 and Experiment 5 used a 3 word present time(150ms,200 ms,350ms)× 3 motor information matching type(match,mismatch,irrelevant)mixed design,respectively,under semantic judgment task condition and lexical judgment task condition,examined the participation status of motor information in different time points,and the effect on motor execution with the same motor feature information.Results showed that at all time points in the semantic judgment task,the motor information was activated but not occupied,and language processing will promote the motor execution.At 200 ms and 350 ms time points in the lexical judgment task,the motor information is in a calm state,and language processing has no effect on the motor execution.However,in the case of 150 ms points,the individual need to devote additional time to process the word in both semantic judgment and lexical judgment task.Moreover,in this process,motor information would be activated even if the task did not require the motor information.Experiment 6 used a 3 word type(hand effector verb,non-hand effector verb,noun)× 2 pseudowords prominence(highlighted,not highlighted)mixed design,explored the impact of pseudowords on the participation extent of motor information during real word cognition,and whether the false wording degree will adjust the participation state of the motion information in the real word,and the influence of its participation state on the execution of motor with consistent effector.Results showed that in the lexical word judgment task,the pseudowords prominence will affect the participation extent of the motor information in the cognition of the real word.Moreover,it did not interfere with the consistent effector language cognition when the participation extent of motor information is low,but will do interfere with that when the participation extent of motor information increased.Study 3 explored the influence mechanism of the motor information participation extent on language cognition through three experiments.Experiment 7 used a 2 motor information suppression degree(high,low)× 3 word type(hand effector verb,non-hand effector verb,noun)mixed design,to explore whether the motor information suppression degree will have different effects on different types of language cognition.The results showed that when the motor information suppression degree is low,it will interfere with the consistent effector language cognition but not with the inconsistent effector language cognition.When the motor information suppression degree is high,it will interfere with both two types of language cognition;Experiment 8 adopted a 2 task(semantic judgment,lexical judgment)× 3 matching type(planned motor direction match with word implicit motor direction,planned motor direction mismatch with word implicit motor direction,irrelevant)mixed design,explored the how the pre-activation of motor feature information affected the language cognitive tasks which required different extent of motor feature information.The results showed that in the semantic judgment task,when the motor feature information activated in advance was consistent with the motor feature information required by the word,the word processing time was increased compared with the inconsistency condition;in the lexical judgment task,when the motor feature information activated in advance was consistent with the motor feature information required by the word,the word processing time was reduced compared with the inconsistency condition.Based on the existing theoretical and empirical research,the current study explored the participation mechanism of motor information in language cognition by three issues.This research is not only the exploration and verification of the moderate embodied language cognition theory,but also the expansion and supplement of the theory.The research finally proposes a hierarchical participation model of motor information in the process of language cognition.These have some implications for future research.