Selective Influences of Precision and Power Grips on Speech Categorization

PLoS One. 2016 Mar 15;11(3):e0151688. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0151688. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that articulatory gestures are systematically associated with specific manual grip actions. Here we show that executing such actions can influence performance on a speech-categorization task. Participants watched and/or listened to speech stimuli while executing either a power or a precision grip. Grip performance influenced the syllable categorization by increasing the proportion of responses of the syllable congruent with the executed grip (power grip-[ke] and precision grip-[te]). Two follow-up experiments indicated that the effect was based on action-induced bias in selecting the syllable.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acoustic Stimulation
  • Adult
  • Color
  • Cues
  • Female
  • Functional Laterality
  • Gestures
  • Hand / innervation
  • Hand Strength / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Mirror Neurons / physiology
  • Models, Neurological
  • Models, Psychological
  • Motor Activity / physiology
  • Motor Cortex / physiology
  • Muscle Strength
  • Nerve Net / physiology*
  • Phonetics
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology*
  • Reaction Time / physiology
  • Speech Perception / physiology*
  • Tongue / innervation
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland (http://www.aka.fi/) under Grant 1265610, reveived by MV. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.