2 research outputs found
Comprehension of Action Negation Involves Inhibitory Simulation
No full textPrevious research suggests that action language is comprehended by activating the motor system. We report a study, investigating a critical question in this research field: Do negative sentences activate the motor system? Participants were exposed to sentences in the affirmation and negation forms while the zygomatic muscle activity on the left side of the face was continuously measured (Electromyography technique: EMG). Sentences were descriptions of emotional expressions that mapped either directly upon the zygomatic muscle (e.g., ‘I am smiling’) or did not (e.g., ‘I am frowning’). Reading sentences involving the negation of the activity of a specific muscle (zygomatic major - I am not smiling) is shown to lead to the inhibition of this muscle. Reading sentences involving the affirmative form instead (I am smiling) leads to the activation of zygomatic mucle. In contrast, sentences describing an activity that is irrelevant to the zygomatic muscle (e.g., ‘I am frowning’ or ‘I am not frowning’) produce no muscle activity. These results extend the range of simulation models to negation and by implication to an abstract domain. We discuss how this research contributes to the grounding of abstract and concrete concepts
The FoodCast Research Image Database (FRIDa)
Get PDFIn recent years we have witnessed to an increasing interest in food processing and eating behaviors. This is probably due to several reasons. The biological relevance of food choices, the complexity of the food-rich environment in which we presently live (making food-intake regulation difficult), and the increasing health care cost due to illness associated with food (food hazards, food contamination, and aberrant food-intake). Despite the importance of the issues and the relevance of this research, comprehensive and validated databases of stimuli are rather limited, outdated, or not available for noncommercial purposes to independent researchers who aim at developing their own research program. The FoodCast Research Image Database (FRIDa) we present here is comprised of 877 images from eight different categories: natural-food (e.g., strawberry), transformed-food (e.g., French fries), rotten-food (e.g., moldy banana), natural-nonfood items (e.g., pinecone), artificial food-related objects (e.g., teacup), artificial objects (e.g., guitar), animals (e.g., camel), and scenes (e.g., airport). FRIDa has been validated on a sample of healthy participants (N=73) on standard variables (e.g., valence, familiarity etc.) as well as on other variables specifically related to food items (e.g., perceived calorie content); it also includes data on the visual features of the stimuli (e.g., brightness, high frequency power etc.). FRIDa is a well-controlled, flexible, validated, and freely available (http://foodcast.sissa.it/neuroscience/) tool for researchers in a wide range of academic fields and industry
