CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Converging neuroscientific evidence suggests that mechanisms involved in the perception and comprehension of meaningful actions may be similar to those associated with the processing of semantic language information. Consistent with this view, electrophysiological findings show that the N400 component, traditionally linked to the semantic processing of verbal material, can also be elicited by the non-verbal portion of action-related material. This review outlines recent data from N400 studies that examine the understanding of action events. We focus on three specific domains, including everyday action comprehension, speech and co-speech gesture integration and the semantics of current motor events. Based on the reviewed findings, we suggest that both negativities reflect a common neurocognitive mechanism involved in the construction of meaning through the expectancies created by previous experiences and current contextual information. To shed light on how this mechanism is instantiated in the brain, a testable contextual frontotemporal model is proposed.