Neural evidence for the interplay between language, gesture, and action: A review

@article{Willems2007NeuralEF,
  title={Neural evidence for the interplay between language, gesture, and action: A review},
  author={Roel M. Willems and Peter Hagoort},
  journal={Brain and Language},
  year={2007},
  volume={101},
  pages={278-289}
}
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Findings provide direct evidence that action and language processing share a high-level neural integration system.
Language, gesture, and the developing brain.
TLDR
Results suggesting that language and gesture are "close family" are reviewed, then evidence that raises questions about how real those "family resemblances" are is turned to, summarizing dissociations from developmental studies of several different child populations.
Language perception activates the hand motor cortex: implications for motor theories of speech perception
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The hand motor system is found to be activated by linguistic tasks, most notably pure linguistic perception, but not by auditory or visuospatial processing, which supports the theory that language may have evolved within a general and bilateral action‐perception network.
What does cross-linguistic variation in semantic coordination of speech and gesture reveal? Evidence for an interface representation of spatial thinking and speaking
Cross-talk between Language Processes and Overt Motor Behavior in the First 200 msec of Processing
TLDR
Investigating the influence of processing action verbs and concrete nouns on the execution of a reaching movement provides unambiguous evidence that action words and motor action share common cortical representations and could thus suggest that cortical motor regions are indeed involved in action word retrieval.
Language and action: creating sensible combinations of ideas
language and action? Both historical (e.g. Descartes, 1992) and contemporary (e.g. Fodor, 1975) philosophers have argued that language is separate from perception and action, that it is a higher…
Processing Abstract Language Modulates Motor System Activity
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There is greater modulation of activity in the hand muscles when reading sentences describing transfer of both concrete objects and abstract information, and this finding is discussed in relation to the human mirror neuron system.
Speech-associated gestures, Broca’s area, and the human mirror system
On-line Integration of Semantic Information from Speech and Gesture: Insights from Event-related Brain Potentials
TLDR
Despite the difference in the modality and in the specificity of meaning conveyed by spoken words and gestures, the latency, amplitude, and topographical distribution of both word and gesture mismatches are found to be similar, indicating that the brain integrates both types of information simultaneously.
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