This thesis is based on the “embodied cognition” approach which considers memory as a unique multiple traces system, which simulates the sensorimotor and emotional components of past experiences to form memories and knowledge (Barsalou 2003, 2008). The aim is to know if the elderlies activate the motor component when they access knowledge and, when the motor component was activated, if the subsequent recognition of this knowledge was facilitated. Three experiments involving two experimental groups of elderlies living in nursing homes and suffering from neurodegenerative pathologies (group 1 – average age 75 years and group 2, average age 90 years) as well as a control group living at home (average age 75 years) were conducted. Two experiments using a sensorimotor priming paradigm were proposed to examine the effect of motor and taxonomic priming on the categorization task (motor and categorization).
The stimuli were object pictures (utensils and tools). The results show that the motor priming effect (the prime and the target imply a similar gesture of use) is preserved in the three groups. Since prime and target were visual stimuli, the effect of motor priming is due to the simulated motor component. There was also a taxonomic priming effect, but it remains dependent on motor priming and the aim of task. In the third experiment, participants studied the material (pictures of kitchen utensils and tools) in three different conditions: taxonomic, motor, and perceptual. The results show that the benefit of the motor processing during study was present at recognition for all subjects.
Thus, our work suggests that the simulation of the motor component remains preserved in “normal” and “pathological” aging.
