Figure 1.

Neurofunctional links between language and action: Left: Somatotopic sensorimotor activation in pre- and postcentral gyrus during simple repetitive movements of the tongue (in green), index finger (red), and foot (blue). Right: Somatotopic activation during passive reading of action words related to the face (e.g., “lick”, in green), arm or hand (“pick”, red), and leg or foot (“kick”, blue). The somatotopic activation of motor systems reflects aspects of the meaning of the language elements under processing (from Hauk et al., 2004).