We investigated how naturalistic actions in a highly immersive, multimodal, interactive 3D virtual reality (VR) environment may enhance word encoding by recording EEG in a pre/post-test learning paradigm. While behavior data has shown that coupling word encoding with gestures congruent with word meaning enhances learning, the neural underpinnings of this effect have yet to be elucidated. We coupled EEG recording with VR to examine whether “embodied learning” improves learning and creates linguistic representations that produce greater motor resonance. Participants learned action verbs in an L2 in two different conditions: Specific action (observing and performing congruent actions on virtual objects) and Pointing (observing actions and pointing to virtual objects). Pre and post-training participants performed a Match-mismatch task as we measured EEG (variation in the N400 response as a function of match between observed actions and auditory verbs) and a Passive listening task while we measured motor activation (mu (8-13 Hz) and beta band (13-30Hz) desynchronization during auditory verb processing) during verb processing. Contrary to our expectations, post-training results revealed neither semantic nor motor effects in either group when considered independently of learning success. Behavioral results showed both groups learned the verbs, but also a great deal of variability in learning success. When considering performance, Low performance learners showed no semantic effect and High performance learners exhibited an N400 effect for Mismatch vs Match trails post-training, independent of the type of learning. Taken as a whole, our results suggest that embodied processes can play an important role in L2 learning.

Being able to process multiword sequences is central for both language comprehension and production. Numerous studies support this claim, but less is known about the way multiword sequences are acquired, and more specifically how associations between their constituents are established over time. Here we adapted Rey et al.’s (2020) Hebb naming task into a Hebb lexical decision task to study the dynamics of multiword sequence extraction. Participants had to read letter strings presented on a computer screen and were required to classify them as words or pseudowords. Unknown to the participants, a triplet of words or pseudowords systematically appeared in the same order and random words or pseudowords were inserted between two repetitions of the triplet. We found that RTs for the unpredictable first position in the triplet decreased over repetitions (i.e., indicating the presence of a repetition effect) but more slowly and with a different dynamic compared to items appearing at the predictable second and third positions in the repeated triplet (i.e., showing a slightly different predictability effect). Implicit and explicit learning also varied as a function of the nature of the triplet (i.e., unrelated words, pseudowords, semantically related words, or idioms). Overall, these results provide new empirical evidence about the dynamics of multiword sequence extraction, and more generally about the role of statistical learning in language acquisition.

A vast body of research suggests that the primary motor cortex is involved during motor imagery. This raises the issue of inhibition: Given the role of the motor system in providing the multisensory content of motor imagery, how is it possible for motor imagery not to lead to motor execution? Bach et al. (2022, this issue) suggest that the motor execution threshold may be “upregulated” during motor imagery to prevent execution. Alternatively, it has been proposed that, in parallel to excitatory mechanisms, inhibitory mechanisms may be actively suppressing motor output during motor imagery. These theories are verbal in nature, with well-known limitations. Here, we describe a toy-model of the inhibitory mechanisms thought to be at play during motor imagery to start disentangling predictions from competing hypotheses.

In this study we reexamined the facilitation that occurs when auditorily presented monosyllabic primes and targets share their final phonemes, and in particular the rime (e.g., /vɔʀd/-/kɔʀd/). More specifically, we asked whether this rime facilitation effect is also observed when the two last consonants of the rime are transposed (e.g., /vɔdʀ/-/kɔʀd/). In comparison to a control condition in which the primes and the targets were unrelated (e.g., /pylt/-/kɔʀd/), we found significant priming effects in both the rime (/vɔʀd/-/kɔʀd/) and the transposed-phoneme “rime” /vɔdʀ/-/kɔʀd/ conditions. We also observed a significantly greater priming effect in the former than in the latter condition. We use the theoretical framework of the TISK model (Hannagan et al., 2013) to propose a novel account of final overlap phonological priming in terms of activation of both position-independent phoneme representations and bi-phone representations.