BRAIN AND COGNITION 13, 59-76 (1990) Unimanual Tapping during Concurrent Articulation: Examining the Role of Cortical Structures in the Execution of Programmed Movement Sequences ALBRECHT WERNER INHOFF State University of New York at Binghamton AND PATRIZIA BISIACCHI Universita di Padova, Padua, Italy Three experiments were conducted to examine effects of speech on concurrent unimanual tapping. Experiments 1 and 2 involved the manual tapping of a short burst of preprogrammed responses with or without concurrent articulation. Re- sults of these experiments showed no effects of speech articulation on the con- current execution of programmed manual movement sequences. In Experiment 3, subjects continuously tapped for 15 set, again, with or without concurrent speech articulation. The results showed that articulation affected the speed of concurrent manual responses with larger interference for right hand tapping than for left hand tapping. Additional analysis of the tapping variability revealed equivalent effects of concurrent articulation on the timing of repetitive right and left hand tapping. Kinsboume’s Functional Cerebral Distance Principle was used to interpret these results. Within this framework, the present findings indicate that functionally distinct processes control speech articulation and the execution of programmed manual movement sequences. 0 1990 Academic Press. Inc. Studies concerned with the preparation of voluntary movements have devoted much of their attention to the analysis of motor programs. These hypothesized structures were originally defined as “sets of movement instuctions that are structured before a movement sequence begins that allows the entire sequence to be carried out uninfluenced by peripheral This research was supported by Grant HD24796 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. We would like to thank Michael Posner for the use of his laboratory at the University of Oregon (Experiment 1) and Cynthia Connine for com- ments on the manuscript. Requests for reprints should be sent to Albrecht Inhoff, De- partment of Psychology, SUNY Center at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13901. 59 0278-2626190 $3.00 Copyright Q 1990 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.