Dataset Information

Concepts are more than percepts: the case of action verbs.

ABSTRACT: Several regions of the posterior-lateral-temporal cortex (PLTC) are reliably recruited when participants read or listen to action verbs, relative to other word and nonword types. This PLTC activation is generally interpreted as reflecting the retrieval of visual-motion features of actions. This interpretation supports the broader theory, that concepts are comprised of sensory-motor features. We investigated an alternative interpretation of the same activations: PLTC activity for action verbs reflects the retrieval of modality-independent representations of event concepts, or the grammatical types associated with them, i.e., verbs. During a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, participants made semantic-relatedness judgments on word pairs varying in amount of visual-motion information. Replicating previous results, several PLTC regions showed higher responses to words that describe actions versus objects. However, we found that these PLTC regions did not overlap with visual-motion regions. Moreover, their response was higher for verbs than nouns, regardless of visual-motion features. For example, the response of the PLTC is equally high to action verbs (e.g., to run) and mental verbs (e.g., to think), and equally low to animal nouns (e.g., the cat) and inanimate natural kind nouns (e.g., the rock). Thus, PLTC activity for action verbs might reflect the retrieval of event concepts, or the grammatical information associated with verbs. We conclude that concepts are abstracted away from sensory-motor experience and organized according to conceptual properties.

SUBMITTER: Bedny M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2752357 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Concepts are more than percepts: the case of action verbs.

Bedny Marina M Caramazza Alfonso A Grossman Emily E Pascual-Leone Alvaro A Saxe Rebecca R

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 20081001 44

Several regions of the posterior-lateral-temporal cortex (PLTC) are reliably recruited when participants read or listen to action verbs, relative to other word and nonword types. This PLTC activation is generally interpreted as reflecting the retrieval of visual-motion features of actions. This interpretation supports the broader theory, that concepts are comprised of sensory-motor features. We investigated an alternative interpretation of the same activations: PLTC activity for action verbs ref ...[more]

PMID: 18971476

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Project description:Some aspects of decision-making are known to decline with normal aging. One of the known perceptual decision-making processes which is vastly studied is binocular rivalry. It is well-established that the older the person, the slower the perceptual dynamics. However, the underlying neurobiological cause is unknown. So, to understand how age affects visual decision-making, we investigated age-related changes in perception during binocular rivalry. In binocular rivalry, the image presented to one eye competes for perceptual dominance with the image presented to the other eye. Perception during binocular rivalry consists of alternations between exclusive percepts. However, frequently, mixed percepts with combinations of the two monocular images occur. The mixed percepts reflect a transition from the percept of one eye to the other but frequently the transitions do not complete the full cycle and the previous exclusive percept becomes dominant again. The transitional idiosyncrasy of mixed percepts has not been studied systematically in different age groups. Previously, we have found evidence for adaptation and noise, and not inhibition, as underlying neural factors that are related to age-dependent perceptual decisions. Based on those conclusions, we predict that mixed percepts/inhibitory interactions should not change with aging. Therefore, in an old and a young age group, we studied binocular rivalry dynamics considering both exclusive and mixed percepts by using two paradigms: percept-choice and percept-switch. We found a decrease in perceptual alternation Probability for older adults, although the rate of mixed percepts did not differ significantly compared to younger adults. Interestingly, the mixed percepts play a very similar transitional idiosyncrasy in our different age groups. Further analyses suggest that differences in synaptic depression, gain modulation at the input level, and/or slower execution of motor commands are not the determining factors to explain these findings. We then argue that changes in perceptual decisions at an older age are the result of changes in neural adaptation and noise.

Dataset Information

Concepts are more than percepts: the case of action verbs.

Publications

Concepts are more than percepts: the case of action verbs.

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