Abstract
The correct outcome of transitive actions depends on an object’s, use considering both the instrumental and functional features. Indeed, the representation of object-related action includes the correct/incorrect instrumental use and the congruous/incongruous functional use of the object.
Objectives: The contribution of frontal (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, DLPFC, experiment 1) and posterior supramarginal gyrus, experiment 2)
areas to process these semantic violations (instrumental vs. functional) in action semantic representation was explored.
Methods: The DLPFC and supramarginal gyrus activity was appositely modulated by tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation). The effect of tDCS (anodal, excitatory) when subjects processed congruous/incongruous object-related actions was verified by measuring the modulation of the ERs (Error Rates) and RTs (Response Times). Forty-three subjects performed the detection task within a dynamic context (video tapes representing a sequence of four action frames ending with a congruous vs. incongruous action).
Results: Significantly decreased RTs were observed for incongruous stimuli
in the case of DLPFC stimulation compared to the sham condition. This
effect was related to both the instrumental and functional semantic violations, suggesting that the activation of the DLPFC may increase the ability to analyse the semantic anomaly independently from the anomaly type, which would limit the cognitive costs. In contrast, parietal stimulation
reduced RTs only in response to functional semantic violations.
Conclusion: Thus, different cortical contributions by anterior vs. posterior
areas occurred in response to semantic anomalies respectively for generic
expectancy violations (more frontally distributed) and specific functional
violations (more frontally distributed).
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | S338-S338 |
Number of pages | 1 |
Journal | Clinical Neurophysiology |
Volume | 125 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2014 |
Event | 30th International Congress of Clinical Neurophysiology (ICCN) of the IFCN - Berlino Duration: 20 Mar 2014 → 23 Mar 2014 |
Keywords
- Action representation
- DLPFC
- Supramarginal gyrus