You have a button to sew. Or screw a screw -with a manual screwdriver or do some other delicate work with your hands. While you were fully engaged in your task you feel a general tension in the body. Instinctively you stick out your tongue and press it against the top of your mouth. What happens to you?"
According to Associate Dean at the University of London's School of Science and professor of comparative cognition, Gillian Forrester, "people tend to stick out their tongues when they are doing something sensitive that requires delicate hand movement.
Professor Forrester led a related study that was conducted, with neuroimaging revealing that the area of the brain associated with language (located in the inferior frontal gyrus) overlaps - to a large extent - with neural networks dedicated to dexterity and tool use. The neurons fire in the area of dexterity and such is their activation that they spill over into the adjacent neural tissue, which directs the mouth. This is all called Motor Overflow.
Therefore, when we are highly concentrated on a task that requires fine movements, the effect spills over into the tongue area and so we are forced to engage the mouth and tongue.
The expert explains that "the hands and tongue are the only fine articulators (see organs used to produce phonemes during speech) in our body and are controlled by overlapping parts of our brain" in the left hemisphere. The research concluded that "the use of fine tools (see fine motor skills) and language share a cognitive process," with the lead author adding that there may be other roles, such as an evolutionary component.
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