Abstract
Upper limb gestures, as well as transitive actions (i.e. acted upon an object) when either executed or observed affect speech. Broca’s area seems to be involved in integration between the two motor representations of arm and mouth (Bernardis and Gentilucci, Neuropsychologia, 44:178–190, 2006, Gentilucci et al., Eur J Neurosci, 19:190–202, 2004a, Neuropsychologia, 42:1554–1567, 2004b, J Cogn Neurosci, 18:1059–1074, 2006). The relevance of these data is in relation with the hypothesis that language evolved from manual gestures, and was gradually transformed in speech by means of a system of dual motor commands to hand and mouth (Gentilucci and Corballis, Neurosci Biobehav, Rev 30:949–960, 2006). The present study aimed to verify whether this system of integration between gestures (and transitive actions) and speech is involved also in the language development of infants. Vocalizations of infants aged between 11 and 13 months were recorded during both manipulation of objects of different size and request arm gestures towards the same objects presented by the experimenter. Frequency in voice spectra increased when the infants manipulated or gestured to large objects in comparison with the same activities directed to small objects. These data suggest that intrinsic properties of an object evoking commands of manual interaction are used to identify that object, and to communicate.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the personnel of the nursery schools (Educational Services of Comune di Parma) for their help in contacting the families. We especially thank the infants who participated in the study and their parents. We are very grateful to Virginia Volterra for discussion of the data and comments on an early version of the paper. We thank Aaron Shield for the comments on the manuscript. The work was supported by MIUR (Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca) and by Fondazione Monte Parma.
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Bernardis, P., Bello, A., Pettenati, P. et al. Manual actions affect vocalizations of infants. Exp Brain Res 184, 599–603 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-1256-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-1256-x