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      Syntax at Hand: Common Syntactic Structures for Actions and Language

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          Abstract

          Evidence that the motor and the linguistic systems share common syntactic representations would open new perspectives on language evolution. Here, crossing disciplinary boundaries, we explore potential parallels between the structure of simple actions and that of sentences. First, examining Typically Developing (TD) children displacing a bottle with or without knowledge of its weight prior to movement onset, we provide kinematic evidence that the sub-phases of this displacing action (reaching + moving the bottle) manifest a structure akin to linguistic embedded dependencies. Then, using the same motor task, we reveal that children suffering from specific language impairment (SLI), whose core deficit affects syntactic embedding and dependencies, manifest specific structural motor anomalies parallel to their linguistic deficits. In contrast to TD children, SLI children performed the displacing-action as if its sub-phases were juxtaposed rather than embedded. The specificity of SLI’s structural motor deficit was confirmed by testing an additional control group: Fragile-X Syndrome patients, whose language capacity, though delayed, comparatively spares embedded dependencies, displayed slower but structurally normal motor performances. By identifying the presence of structural representations and dependency computations in the motor system and by showing their selective deficit in SLI patients, these findings point to a potential motor origin for language syntax.

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          Active perception: sensorimotor circuits as a cortical basis for language.

          Action and perception are functionally linked in the brain, but a hotly debated question is whether perception and comprehension of stimuli depend on motor circuits. Brain language mechanisms are ideal for addressing this question. Neuroimaging investigations have found specific motor activations when subjects understand speech sounds, word meanings and sentence structures. Moreover, studies involving transcranial magnetic stimulation and patients with lesions affecting inferior frontal regions of the brain have shown contributions of motor circuits to the comprehension of phonemes, semantic categories and grammar. These data show that language comprehension benefits from frontocentral action systems, indicating that action and perception circuits are interdependent.
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            Coming of age: a review of embodiment and the neuroscience of semantics.

            Over the last decade, there has been an increasing body of work that explores whether sensory and motor information is a necessary part of semantic representation and processing. This is the embodiment hypothesis. This paper presents a theoretical review of this work that is intended to be useful for researchers in the neurosciences and neuropsychology. Beginning with a historical perspective, relevant theories are placed on a continuum from strongly embodied to completely unembodied representations. Predictions are derived and neuroscientific and neuropsychological evidence that could support different theories is reviewed; finally, criticisms of embodiment are discussed. We conclude that strongly embodied and completely disembodied theories are not supported, and that the remaining theories agree that semantic representation involves some form of convergence zones (Damasio, 1989) and the activation of modal content. For the future, research must carefully define the boundaries of semantic processing and tackle the representation of abstract entities. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.
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              The timing of natural prehension movements.

              Prehension movements were studied by film in 7 adult subjects. Transportation of the hand to the target-object location had features very similar to any aiming arm movement, that is, it involved a fast-velocity initial phase and a low-velocity final phase. The peak velocity of the movement was highly correlated with its amplitude, although total movement duration tended to remain invariant when target distance was changed. The low-velocity phase consistently began after about 75% of movement time had elapsed. This ration was maintained for different movement amplitudes. Formation of the finger grip occurred during hand transportation. Fingers were first stretched and then began to close in anticipation to contact with the object. The onset of the closure phase was highly correlated to the beginning of the low velocity phase of transportation. This pattern for both transportation and finger grip formation was maintained in conditions whether visual feedback from the moving limb was present or not. Implications of these findings for the central programming of multisegmental movements are discussed.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1932-6203
                2013
                22 August 2013
                : 8
                : 8
                : e72677
                Affiliations
                [1 ]L2C2- Institut des Sciences Cognitives, CNRS UMR 5304, Bron, France
                [2 ]Université Claude Bernard Lyon I, Lyon, France
                [3 ]Centre de Référence «Déficiences Intellectuelles de Causes Rares» Hôpital Femme Mère Enfant, Hospices Civils de Lyon, Bron, France
                [4 ]Service de Psychopathologie du Développement- Hôpital Femme Mère Enfant, Hospices Civils de Lyon, Bron, France
                [5 ]Université de Lyon, Faculté de Médecine Lyon Sud - Charles Mérieux, Lyon, France
                University of Milan, Italy
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Conceived and designed the experiments: ACR AC TAN YP VdP PF VD. Performed the experiments: ACR AC PF. Analyzed the data: ACR VD. Wrote the manuscript: ACR AC TAN YP VdP PF VD.

                Article
                PONE-D-12-37068
                10.1371/journal.pone.0072677
                3749983
                23991140
                bded9c72-ea4e-4508-b42e-fcaab31db91e
                Copyright @ 2013

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 29 November 2012
                : 18 July 2013
                Funding
                This work has been supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and ACR and PF were additionally supported by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Agence Nationale pour la Recherche Samenta (ANR-12-SAMA-015-02). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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                Research Article

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