Martina Montalti, Marta Calbi, Maria Alessandra Umiltà, Vittorio Gallese, Valentina Cuccio
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Several studies demonstrated that explicit forms of negation processing (e.g., "I don't know") recruits motor inhibitory mechanisms. However, whether this is also true for implicit negation, in which the negative meaning is implicated but not explicitly lexicalized in the sentence (e.g., "I ignore"), has never been studied before. Two Go/No-Go studies, which differed only for the time-windows to respond to the Go stimulus, were carried out. In each, participants (N = 86 in experiment 1; N = 87 in experiment 2) respond to coloured circle while reading task-irrelevant affirmative, explicit negative and implicit negative sentences. We aimed to investigate whether: (i) the processing of implicit negations recruits inhibitory mechanisms; (ii) these inhibitory resources are differently modulated by implicit and explicit negations. Results show that implicit negative sentences recruit the inhibitory resources more strongly when compared to explicit ones, probably due to their inferential nature, likely requiring deeper processing of the negative meaning. Implicit and inferential meaning (i.e., pragmatic information) are grounded too in the same mechanisms that integrate action with perception. Such findings provide further evidence to the embodied account of language, showing that even abstract aspects, like implicit negation, are grounded in the sensory-motor system, by means of functional link between language and motor activity.
期刊介绍:
Psychological Research/Psychologische Forschung publishes articles that contribute to a basic understanding of human perception, attention, memory, and action. The Journal is devoted to the dissemination of knowledge based on firm experimental ground, but not to particular approaches or schools of thought. Theoretical and historical papers are welcome to the extent that they serve this general purpose; papers of an applied nature are acceptable if they contribute to basic understanding or serve to bridge the often felt gap between basic and applied research in the field covered by the Journal.