BACKGROUND Action semantics have been investigated in relation to context violation but remain less examined in relation to the meaning of gestures. In the present study, we examined tool-gesture incongruity by event-related potentials (ERPs) and hypothesized that the component N400, a neural index which has been widely used in both linguistic and action semantic congruence, is significant for conditions of incongruence. METHODS Twenty participants performed a tool-gesture judgment task, in which they were asked to judge whether the tool-gesture pairs were correct or incorrect, for the purpose of conveying functional expression of the tools. Online electroencephalograms and behavioral performances (the accuracy rate and reaction time) were recorded. RESULTS The ERP analysis showed a left centro-parieto-temporal N300 effect (220-360 ms) for the correct condition. However, the expected N400 (400-550 ms) could not be differentiated between correct/incorrect conditions. After 700 ms, a prominent late negative complex for the correct condition was also found in the left centro-parieto-temporal area. CONCLUSIONS The neurophysiological findings indicated that the left centro-parieto-temporal area is the predominant region contributing to neural processing for tool-gesture incongruity in right-handers. The temporal dynamics of tool-gesture incongruity are: (1) firstly enhanced for recognizable tool-gesture using patterns, (2) and require a secondary reanalysis for further examination of the highly complicated visual structures of gestures and tools. The evidence from the tool-gesture incongruity indicated altered brain activities attributable to the N400 in relation to lexical and action semantics. The online interaction between gesture and tool processing provided minimal context violation or anticipation effect, which may explain the missing N400.

中文翻译：

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对工具手势不一致的左上顶颞颞反应：一项ERP研究。

背景技术已经对与上下文冲突有关的动作语义进行了研究，但是与手势的含义有关的动作语义却很少得到研究。在本研究中，我们通过事件相关电位（ERP）检验了工具-手势的不一致性，并假设N400成分（一种已广泛用于语言和动作语义一致性的神经指标）对于不一致性的条件具有重要意义。方法20名参与者执行了工具手势判断任务，其中要求他们判断工具手势对是否正确或错误，以传达工具的功能表达。记录在线脑电图和行为表现（准确率和反应时间）。结果ERP分析显示，在正确的条件下，左上顶颞叶N300效应（220-360 ms）。但是，预期的N400（400-550毫秒）无法在正确/错误条件之间区分开。700毫秒后，在左上顶颞叶区域还发现了一个明显的晚期负复合体，其条件正确。结论的神经生理学结果表明，左上顶颞颞区是主要区域，有助于右手者工具-姿势不合的神经处理。工具-手势不一致的时间动态是：（1）首先增强了使用模式可识别的工具-手势，（2），并且需要进行二次分析以进一步检查手势和工具的高度复杂的视觉结构。工具手势不一致的证据表明，与词汇和动作语义相关的N400导致的大脑活动发生了变化。手势和工具处理之间的在线交互提供了最小的上下文冲突或预期效果，这可以解释丢失的N400。