Semantic Activation in Badminton Action Processing and Its Modulation by Action Duration: An ERP Study

Abstract

Action processing is crucial for sports activities. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study investigated whether semantics were activated in action processing and, if so, whether semantic activation was modulated by action duration. Badminton athletes were recruited to finish a lexical decision task following an action-semantic priming paradigm, in which short (400 ms) or long (1000 ms) action videos served as primes, and semantically congruent or incongruent action words served as targets. The ERP results showed a P300 effect, that is, larger P300 amplitudes were observed for targets primed by semantically incongruent action videos than for targets primed by semantically congruent action videos, only when the action videos were long and not when the action videos were short. Moreover, a late positive component (LPC) was only sensitive to action duration, showing that the targets primed by long action videos elicited larger LPC amplitudes compared to the targets primed by short action videos. These results suggested that semantics could be activated in action processing and that semantic activation was modulated by action duration, supporting a link between the language system and action processing.