“Sensorimotor processing of language”

Luciano Fadiga, University of Ferrara and The Italian Institute of Technology of Genova, Italy

Despite the fact that the famous ‘motor theory of speech perception’ by Alvin Liberman dates almost fifty years, a strong debate still survives on the possibility that speech understanding does not rely on sensory processing alone. In my presentation I will provide evidence that Liberman was substantially right and that a motor framework for language processing exists, not only for speech but also for syntax. To this purpose I will present very recent TMS data, patients studies, and computational models, all converging in the same direction.