Embodiment Effect On The Comprehension Of Mandarin Manual Action Language

Embodied theory of cognition argues that language comprehension involves activating specific sensory-motor systems in the brain.People tend to simulate actions and events in the process of language comprehension.An example is the comprehension of action-related language,which interacts with motor performance(action-sentence compatibility effect or ACE)based upon behavioral studies.According to neurological studies,motor and premotor brain areas are activated in the language comprehension process.However,most researches have focused on alphabetic languages.Few researchers pay more attention to logographic languages like Chinese.Based on the experimental paradigm by Santana and de Vega(2013),the present research aims to further investigate brain response to the comprehension of Mandarin manual action language by employing ERPs.Twenty native Mandarin speakers were recruited as participants.The Chinese stimuli include experimental sentences describing two manual actions either in incongruent condition marked by the Chinese parallel structure“一边…一边…”(yibian…yibian…;while)or congruent condition marked by the sequential structure“先…然后…”(xian…ranhou…;after).Altogether,experimental sentences include eighty sentences.Besides,sixty filler sentences are included with reversed sensibility.The congruent condition is marked by“一边…一边…”(yibian…yibian…)and incongruent condition is marked by“先…然后…”(xian…ranhou…).Filler sentences can discourage participants from making a superficial judgement simply based upon the grammatical structure.The behavioral results and ERPs results have verified the embodiment effect on language comprehension.Specifically,as for the behavioral results,experimental sentences in the incongruent condition were associated with longer response time and judged as less sensible.Participants can find it difficult to simulate two manual actions at the same time.Behavioral results have confirmed the embodiment effect.Besides,with regard to N400 amplitude in ERPs experiment,the last action clause in the incongruent experimental sentences elicited larger fronto-central N400 component,which can be attributed to the embodied constraints rather than other factors such as incongruence of word,sentence,discourse as well as world knowledge.It can be concluded that motor system was involved in the comprehension process.Embodied knowledge plays an important role in language comprehension process.Finally,according to source estimation of N400 component,activation of left middle frontal gyrus in both incongruent and congruent condition was associated with specific Mandarin logographic writing systems.Stronger activation in the left middle frontal gyrus which is related with premotor cortex was found in the incongruent experimental sentences.It can verify that Chinese readers demand more premotor resources for understanding incongruent action language.Motor knowledge helps people to construct the meaning during comprehension process.In a word,the research verifies embodiment effect by behavioral results,N400 amplitude and source estimation.The research further extends embodiment effect on the comprehension of Mandarin manual action language.Furthermore,Mandarin comprehension requires engagement of left middle frontal gyrus different from other alphabetic languages.