Nakayama, M. 1, 2 & Saito, S. 1
1 Graduate school of education. Kyoto University. Kyoto, Japan.
2 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Tokyo, Japan
The cognitive functions of language and imitation are both unique to humans. Moreover, the brain regions responsible for these functions (i.e., Broca’s area) overlap somewhat. Kühn and Brass (2008) recently investigated the functional commonality of articulation and imitation using a dual-task technique. They showed that concurrent articulation facilitated finger imitation in a simple response task, which lead to the assumption that Broca’s area was pre-activated. The present study explored the temporal dynamics of this facilitation effect. Specifically, we manipulated the relative timing (0 ± 250 ms) of articulation and imitation, requiring that participants pace their articulations (i.e., event-related dual tasking). An additional experimental manipulation involved the presence of an articulation preceding stimulus onset. Our results showed a facilitative effect of finger imitation, which was strongly affected by the relative timing, but not by the presence, of the preceding additional articulation. The present study highlighted the mechanism underlying the interaction and commonality of two cognitive functions, language and imitation.