Brunetti, R. 1, 3 , Delogu, F. 2 , Del Gatto, C. 3 , Del Grosso, E. 3 & D'Ausilio, A. 4
1 Department of didactics and research, UER, Italy
2 Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
3 Università Europea di Roma, Italy
Recent studies have shown strong links between perception, motor programming, and the processing of meaning. In particular, studies within the embodied cognition approach demonstrated that action and sentence comprehension seem to be associated. However, it is still matter of debate how and when this interaction happens. In this study we tested how actions can be primed by words with different levels of abstractness. Ninety participants performed the simple action of moving a joystick upward or downward
accordingly to the presentation of an imperative stimulus. Actions could be primed by task-irrelevant words belonging to four different categories with different levels of abstractness: the first category of words has a direct motor meaning (e.g. "to push up"/"to push down") while the remaining three show progressively higher levels of abstractness in their relationship with the “upward” and the “downward” directions (e.g. from the fourth category: “joy”/“sadness”). The delay between prime and imperative stimulus was systematically varied. Action-word semantic matching effects have been found in reaction times to the imperative stimulus. Such effects are also modulated by timing presentation and level of abstractness of the prime. Results are discussed according to recent theories of action representation.