Quadrelli, Ermanno, Geangu, Elena orcid.org/0000-0002-0398-8398 and Turati, Chiara (2019) Human action sounds elicit sensorimotor activation early in life. Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior. pp. 323-335. ISSN 1973-8102
Abstract
In human adults the auditory representation of others' actions is capable to activate specific areas of the motor and premotor cortices. Here, we examined the early origins of action sounds neural processing to investigate whether and how infants rely on auditory information to understand their close social environment. Sensorimotor activity, as indexed by μ rhythm suppression, was measured using electroencephalography in 14-month-old infants who listened to hand- and foot-produced action sounds (i.e., footsteps and clapping) and to mechanical sounds (i.e., blender). Footstep sounds elicited activation at midline electrodes over the foot area (Cz), and not in correspondence of lateralized clusters over the hand areas (C3 and C4). Greater activation in response to clapping compared to blender and footstep sounds was recorded at electrodes in the left central cluster, over the hand sensorimotor cortex (i.e., C3), but extended to some extent over the midline electrode cluster. Furthermore, our results underscore the role of natural locomotor experience in shaping sensorimotor activation, since infants who gathered more walking experience exhibited stronger sensorimotor activation for footstep sounds over left central electrodes. Taken together, current results provide the first evidence that action sounds produced by another person are capable to elicit sensorimotor activation during infancy.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Sensorimotor cortex,motor experience,sounds,action perception,infancy |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Psychology (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 07 May 2019 16:30 |
Last Modified: | 15 Feb 2025 00:08 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2019.05.009 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.cortex.2019.05.009 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:145773 |
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