The Effects of Motor Expertise on Interactions Between Language, Action, and Object Perception

Abstract

This study investigated whether motor expertise would modulate the effects of language processing on visual perception visual perception of a moving object. Participants in this study first read sentences about either throwing or catching a basketball, and then they viewed an ambiguously moving stimulus (i.e., a bi-stable motion stimulus that could be perceived as either rotating toward or away from the participant). Participants were asked to indicate which direction the stimulus appeared to be moving on each trial. Following the task, participants completed an athletics questionnaire. Overall, participants' judgments of the moving stimulus were not affected by the language they read. However, there was a trend in the data suggesting that people with a history of playing ball-related sports might show stronger effects of language on perception. More research is needed with to determine how individual differences influence how and when these systems interact.