12 sequences of motor acts can be of different complexity, and several sequences can be
combined together. What is relevant is that each action is defined by a goal and a motor chain, but it is
just a syntactical description of that action, that is the other parameters such as the kinematics are differently defined and probably coded by different neural structures. In this
sense this constitutes a basic description of action which is easily translated from actual performed actions, to verbal language, gestural pantomimes, pictures and more. This is
particularly due to the fact that if chains constitute the syntax of actions, then the roles in the chains such as SubjectObject are empty and they are locally fulfilled for a single
action. This elaboration of motor chains permits to assume them as the basic mechanism
which allows for the passage between the single level of embodied processes and the level of intersubjectivity. The empty actantial roles can be easily fulfilled by more than a single,
even by a group, in defining just locally their position. In this sense a motor chain is a mechanism which accounts both for single-body processes and for intersubjective
relations. More, it supports our idea of a continuous translation between different languages and systems.
0.3. Experimental contribution: the structure of the thesis
The general aim of this thesis was to investigate how and to what extent the characteristics of action organization are reflected in language, and how linguistic
processing of these aspects affect the motor behavior. This issue is still very debated in literature, although a huge amount of research has been devoted to the study of the motor
effects of language. Large part of these studies did not systematically focus on specific aspects of action organization in order to investigate their translation in language, being
more interested in low-level motor effects such as effector-relatedness of action.
13 After a review of previous studies and of the neural candidates to support motor
resonance chapter 1 and a critical discussion of some of them namely the emergence of facilitation vs interference effects, chapter 2, the thesis presents three experimental
chapters, each devoted to a specific aspect of action organization. In chapter 3, I present a kinematics study designed in order to disentangle the
effective time course of the involvement of the motor system during language processing. In particular, the aim was to distinguish the specific effect of timing on actions with
different degrees of complexity and with different goals In chapter 4, a second kinematics study is presented, with the aim to examine the
interplay between the role of motor perspective agent and action organization in motor chains, verifying its behavioral effect on an overt action required as response. This study
aimed at deepening how goal can be translated in language, using as stimuli simple sentences composed by a pronoun I, You, HeShe and a verb. The basic assumption is
that language encodes goals at different levels: not only at the very general level of goals as abstract entities, but at the specific level of goals as concrete entities relying on
sequences of motor acts or simple actions. In chapter 5, the issue of perspective is specifically investigated, focusing on its
role in language comprehension. In particular, this study aimed at determining how a specific perspective induced for example by a personal pronoun modulates the motor
behaviour during and after language processing. A classical compatibility effect the Action-sentence Compatibility Effect has been used to this aim. In three behavioural
experiments I investigated how the ACE is modulated by taking first or third person perspective.
In chapter 6 I critically discuss the results from our studies, aiming at unifying their results into a general framework which could inform future research in this field.
14
15
1. Embodiment and motor resonance during language processing
