Effect of syllable articulation on precision and power grip performance

The present study was motivated by a theory, which proposes that speech includes articulatory gestures that are connected to particular hand actions. We hypothesized that certain articulatory gestures would be more associated with the precision grip than with the power grip, and vice versa. In the s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2013-01, Vol.8 (1), p.e53061-e53061
Main Authors: Vainio, Lari, Schulman, Mirjam, Tiippana, Kaisa, Vainio, Martti
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Alveoli
Articulation
Articulation (speech)
Biology
Brain research
Cognition & reasoning
Experimental psychology
Female
Food
Gestures
Hand Strength - physiology
Humans
Language
Male
Middle Aged
Mouth
Neurons
Neurophysiology
Neuropsychology
Onomatopoeia
Origin of language
Phonetics
Psychology
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reaction Time - physiology
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Speech
Speech Acoustics
Speech Articulation Tests - methods
Studies
Symbolism
Tip of the tongue phenomenon
Tongue
Tongue - physiology
Visual Perception - physiology
Vocal tract
Young Adult
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Summary:The present study was motivated by a theory, which proposes that speech includes articulatory gestures that are connected to particular hand actions. We hypothesized that certain articulatory gestures would be more associated with the precision grip than with the power grip, and vice versa. In the study, the participants pronounced a syllable and performed simultaneously a precision or power grip that was theorized to be either congruent or incongruent with the syllable. Relatively fast precision grip responses were associated with articulatory gestures in which the tip of the tongue contacted the alveolar ridge ([te]) or the aperture of the vocal tract remained small ([hi]), as well as gestures that required lip protrusion ([pu]). In contrast, relatively fast power grip responses were associated with gestures that were produced by moving the back of the tongue against the velum ([ke]) or in which the aperture of the vocal tract remained large ([hα]). In addition to demonstrating that certain articulatory gestures are systematically connected to different grip types, the study may shed some light on discussion concerning sound symbolism and evolution of speech.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0053061