Abstrakt
Speech and tool cognition have been shown to be processed in overlapping brain regions around the inferior frontal cortex, also known as Broca's area. Experiments were conducted to explore mechanisms of cognitive interference effects between tool manipulation and phonological tasks.
Results will show that the acoustic patterns of vowels change according to tool properties in terms of the meaningfulness of tool combinations that are being manipulated. Furthermore acoustic changes will be related to the concept of an action semantic system1 in terms of noun-versus-verb processing strategies.
The present experiment will contribute to the on-going debate on whether tool knowledge is mentally stored according to semantic properties and the 'activity potential' (verb) of the tools. Sex-related differences in tool cognition and phonological processes will be discussed with possible implications regarding the evolution of speech.