Embodied speech: sensorimotor contributions to native and non-native language processing and learning
Résumé
Neuroimaging studies using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) or functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) have provided compelling evidence that (pre)motor regions involved in speech production are also activated during the mere perception of native phonemes. In their seminal work, Fadiga and colleagues (2002) applied TMS to the left motor cortex of Italian adults while they listened to words and pseudo-words featuring either the double lingua-palatal fricative (alveolar trill) /rr/, which requires strong tongue tip movements to be produced, or the double labiodental fricative /ff/, which only involves minor tongue