On the nature of action-sentence compatibility effects.

Strong versions of the embodied account of language processing propose that comprehension depends on the mental simulation of sensorimotor experiences conveyed by linguistic meaning. Primary support in favor of this view is based on demonstrations of processing advantages for compatibility between an action implied by sentence content and concurrent sensorimotor processing. Although these effects have been reported across a variety of contexts, various attempts to reproduce these results, both through direct replication and conceptual extension, have not been successful. We present a series of experiments that examine the viability of previous methods used to obtain compatibility effects and the validity of the typical interpretation of such effects as evidence for mental simulation of described actions. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence that compatibility between sentence content and sensorimotor processing does not produce robust compatibility effects. Further, our findings suggest the data obtained from some studies that have been successful in generating compatibility effects can be accounted for without appealing to the notion that these effects are due to the simulation of actions implied by the meaning of a sentence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Investigating the relationship between the Bayes factor and the separation of credible intervals.

We examined the relationship between the Bayes factor and the separation of credible intervals in between- and within-subject designs under a range of effect and sample sizes. For the within-subject case, we considered five intervals: (1) the within-subject confidence interval of Loftus and Masson (1994); (2) the within-subject Bayesian interval developed by Nathoo et al. (2018), whose derivation conditions on estimated random effects; (3) and (4) two modifications of (2) based on a proposal by Heck (2019) to allow for shrinkage and account for uncertainty in the estimation of random effects; and (5) the standard Bayesian highest-density interval. We derived and observed through simulations a clear and consistent relationship between the Bayes factor and the separation of credible intervals. Remarkably, for a given sample size, this relationship is described well by a simple quadratic exponential curve and is most precise in case (4). In contrast, interval (5) is relatively wide due to between-subjects variability and is likely to obscure effects when used in within-subject designs, rendering its relationship with the Bayes factor unclear in that case. We discuss how the separation percentage of (4), combined with knowledge of the sample size, could provide evidence in support of either a null or an alternative hypothesis. We also present a case study with example data and provide an R package 'rmBayes' to enable computation of each of the within-subject credible intervals investigated here using a number of possible prior distributions.

A pre-registered, multi-lab non-replication of the action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE).

The Action-sentence Compatibility Effect (ACE) is a well-known demonstration of the role of motor activity in the comprehension of language. Participants are asked to make sensibility judgments on sentences by producing movements toward the body or away from the body. The ACE is the finding that movements are faster when the direction of the movement (e.g., toward) matches the direction of the action in the to-be-judged sentence (e.g., Art gave you the pen describes action toward you). We report on a pre-registered, multi-lab replication of one version of the ACE. The results show that none of the 18 labs involved in the study observed a reliable ACE, and that the meta-analytic estimate of the size of the ACE was essentially zero.

The role of cognitive control and top-down processes in object affordances.

A widely held though debatable claim is that the picture of an object like a frying pan automatically elicits features of a left/right-handed grasp action even in perceptual tasks that make no demands on the observer to consider the graspable properties of the depicted object. Here, we sought to further elucidate this claim by relying on a methodology that allowed us to distinguish between the influence of motor versus spatial codes on the selection of a left/right-handed response while electroencephalographic data were recorded. In our experiment, participants classified images of frying pans as upright or inverted using a left/right key press or by making a left/right-handed reach-and-grasp action towards a centrally located response element while we recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) data. In line with previous evidence (Bub, Masson, & van Noordenne, Journal of Experiment Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 47(1), 53-80, 2021), these two modes of responding generated distinct correspondence effects on performance induced by the same set of images. In terms of our EEG data, we found that neither motor (the lateralized readiness potential) nor visual (N100 and P100) potentials were sensitive to handle-response hand correspondence. However, an exploratory theta analysis revealed that changes in frontal theta power mirrored the different correspondence effects evoked by the image on key press responses versus reach and grasp actions. Importantly, our results provide a link between these disparate effects and the engagement of cognitive control, highlighting a possible role of top-down control processes in separating motor features from the task-irrelevant features of an object, and thus in claims regarding object affordances more generally.

Motor representations evoked by objects under varying action intentions.

In an extension of Gibson's (1979) concept of object affordance, it has been proposed that motor representations are automatically evoked by pictures of graspable objects. A variety of effects on left/right-handed keypress responses to the perceptual attributes of such images have been taken as evidence that features of actions, including the hand best suited to grasp an object, contribute to the effect of the handle's left/right location on response selection. We present an argument against this claim by establishing that all of these effects are based on spatial codes, including effects mistakenly interpreted to reflect the influence of limb-specific features of a grasp action. We also present 6 experiments showing that under certain task conditions, limb-specific effects on response selection are indeed automatically generated by the task-irrelevant image of a graspable object. These effects are found either when the observer makes keypress or reach-and-grasp responses to the laterality of a pictured hand superimposed on a depicted object. Both tasks recruit control processes that determine how the hand is selected and configured to grasp an object. We infer that processes implicated in the planning of a reach-and-grasp action themselves determine whether the task-irrelevant picture of an object triggers motor-based rather than spatial features. Our results have deep implications for the widely used concept of an affordance for action furnished by an object. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Far-Transfer Effects of Strategy-Based Working Memory Training.

We assessed the transfer effects of training working memory strategies to a novel problem-solving task. Previous WM training studies have produced little evidence for transfer across contexts. In the current study, 64 6- to 9-year-olds were randomly assigned to one of four training conditions: semantic and rehearsal training, semantic training only, rehearsal training only, and treated control group. All training groups performed significantly better on the transfer task than the control group, but training groups did not differ significantly from each other. Implications of the findings for cognitive interventions and future WM training studies are discussed.

Intentions and actions.

Manipulable objects have the potential to evoke mental representations of hand actions. Behavioural evidence favouring the view that this process happens automatically while passively viewing objects is critically examined. A case is made for the alternative proposal that objects may evoke action representations when observers concurrently operate with an intention to engage in a reach-and-grasp action. In addition, the nature of hand action representations was examined by considering two components of actions, hand selection and wrist orientation, and it is shown that the relationship between these dimensions is modulated by task context. When an action representation is evoked by a task-irrelevant object, these two dimensions are to a large extent independent of one another, but when an observer prepares an action for immediate production, these two action features are hierarchically integrated, with hand selection dominating the hierarchy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Fluency misattribution and auditory hindsight bias.

We conducted three experiments to test the fluency-misattribution account of auditory hindsight bias. According to this account, prior exposure to a clearly presented auditory stimulus produces fluent (improved) processing of a distorted version of that stimulus, which results in participants mistakenly rating that item as easy to identify. In all experiments, participants in an exposure phase heard clearly spoken words zero, one, three, or six times. In the test phase, we examined auditory hindsight bias by manipulating whether participants heard a clear version of a target word just prior to hearing the distorted version of that word. Participants then estimated the ability of naïve peers to identify the distorted word. Auditory hindsight bias and the number of priming presentations during the exposure phase interacted underadditively in their prediction of participants' estimates: When no clear version of the target word appeared prior to the distorted version of that word in the test phase, participants identified target words more often the more frequently they heard the clear word in the exposure phase. Conversely, hearing a clear version of the target word at test produced similar estimates, regardless of the number of times participants heard clear versions of those words during the exposure phase. As per Roberts and Sternberg's (Attention and Performance XIV, pp. 611-653, 1993) additive factors logic, this finding suggests that both auditory hindsight bias and repetition priming contribute to a common process, which we propose involves a misattribution of processing fluency. We conclude that misattribution of fluency accounts for auditory hindsight bias.

Switching between lift and use grasp actions.

Switching between competing grasp postures incurs costs on speeded performance. We examined switch costs between lift versus use actions under task conditions that required subjects to identify familiar objects. There were no asymmetrical interference effects, though reliable costs occurred when the same object required a different action on consecutive trials. In addition, lift actions were faster to objects targeted for a prospective use action than objects irrelevant to this intended goal. The benefit of a lift-then-use action sequence was not merely due to the production of two different actions in short order on the same object; use actions to an object marked for the distal goal of a lift action were not faster than use actions applied to another object. We propose that the intention to use an object facilitates the prior action of lifting it because the motor sequence lift-then-use is habitually conscripted to enact the proper function of an object.

Time course of motor affordances evoked by pictured objects and words.

Correspondence effects based on the relationship between the left/right position of a pictured object's handle and the hand used to make a response, or on the size of the object and the nature of a grip response (power/precision), have been attributed to motor affordances evoked by the object. Effects of this nature, however, are readily explained by the similarity in the abstract spatial coding of the features that define the stimulus and response, without recourse to object-based affordances. We propose that in the task context of making reach-and-grasp actions, pictured objects may evoke genuine, limb-specific action constituents. We demonstrate that when subjects make reach-and-grasp responses, there is a qualitative difference in the time course of correspondence effects induced by pictures of objects versus the names of those objects. For word primes, this time course was consistent with the abstract spatial coding account, in which effects should emerge slowly and become apparent only among longer response times. In contrast, correspondence effects attributable to object primes were apparent even among the shortest response times and were invariant across the entire response-time distribution. Using rotated versions of object primes provided evidence for a short-lived competition between canonical and depicted orientations of an object with respect to eliciting components of associated actions. These results suggest that under task conditions requiring reach-and-grasp responses, pictured objects rapidly trigger constituents of real-world actions. (PsycINFO Database Record

Grasp representations depend on knowledge and attention.

Seeing pictures of objects activates the motor cortex and can have an influence on subsequent grasping actions. However, the exact nature of the motor representations evoked by these pictures is unclear. For example, action plans engaged by pictures could be most affected by direct visual input and computed online based on object shape. Alternatively, action plans could be influenced by experience seeing and grasping these objects. We provide evidence for a dual-route theory of action representations evoked by pictures of objects, suggesting that these representations are influenced by both direct visual input and stored knowledge. We find that that familiarity with objects has a facilitative effect on grasping actions, with knowledge about the object's canonical orientation or its name speeding grasping actions for familiar objects compared to novel objects. Furthermore, the strength of contributions from each route to action can be modulated by the manner in which the objects are attended. Thus, evocation of grasping representations depends on an interaction between one's familiarity with perceived objects and how those objects are attended while making grasp actions. (PsycINFO Database Record

Components of competitor priming in task switching.

Executing an action in response to a stimulus is thought to result in the creation of an event code that integrates stimulus and action features (Allport, 1987; Hommel in Visual Cognition 5: 183-216, 1998). When switching between tasks, competitor priming occurs if a distractor stimulus cues the retrieval of a previously established event code in which that distractor is bound to a competing task, creating a source of interference with the current task whereby the observer is encouraged to apply the competing task to the distractor. We propose a second aspect of competitor priming: the misapplication of the retrieved competing task to the target stimulus. We report two task-switching experiments in which tasks applied to picture-word compound stimuli were manipulated to create conditions in which this second aspect of competitor priming could be revealed and distinguished from other sources of task- and stimulus-based priming. A substantial increase in competitor priming was observed when subjects switched between tasks that required very different processing operations and the competing task was highly relevant to the target stimulus. These results are consistent with our claim that competitor priming can result from applying the competing task either to the distractor that cued it or to the target stimulus.

Modulation of additive and interactive effects by trial history revisited.

Masson and Kliegl (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 898-914, 2013) reported evidence that the nature of the target stimulus on the previous trial of a lexical decision task modulates the effects of independent variables on the current trial, including additive versus interactive effects of word frequency and stimulus quality. In contrast, recent reanalyses of previously published data from experiments that, unlike the Masson and Kliegl experiments, did not include semantic priming as a factor, found no evidence for modulation of additive effects of frequency and stimulus quality by trial history (Balota, Aschenbrenner, & Yap, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 1563-1571, 2013; O'Malley & Besner, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 1400-1411, 2013). We report two experiments that included semantic priming as a factor and that attempted to replicate the modulatory effects found by Masson and Kliegl. In neither experiment was additivity of frequency and stimulus quality modulated by trial history, converging with the findings reported by Balota et al. and O'Malley and Besner. Other modulatory influences of trial history, however, were replicated in the new experiments and reflect potential trial-by-trial alterations in decision processes.

Bias in Research Grant Evaluation Has Dire Consequences for Small Universities.

Federal funding for basic scientific research is the cornerstone of societal progress, economy, health and well-being. There is a direct relationship between financial investment in science and a nation's scientific discoveries, making it a priority for governments to distribute public funding appropriately in support of the best science. However, research grant proposal success rate and funding level can be skewed toward certain groups of applicants, and such skew may be driven by systemic bias arising during grant proposal evaluation and scoring. Policies to best redress this problem are not well established. Here, we show that funding success and grant amounts for applications to Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery Grant program (2011-2014) are consistently lower for applicants from small institutions. This pattern persists across applicant experience levels, is consistent among three criteria used to score grant proposals, and therefore is interpreted as representing systemic bias targeting applicants from small institutions. When current funding success rates are projected forward, forecasts reveal that future science funding at small schools in Canada will decline precipitously in the next decade, if skews are left uncorrected. We show that a recently-adopted pilot program to bolster success by lowering standards for select applicants from small institutions will not erase funding skew, nor will several other post-evaluation corrective measures. Rather, to support objective and robust review of grant applications, it is necessary for research councils to address evaluation skew directly, by adopting procedures such as blind review of research proposals and bibliometric assessment of performance. Such measures will be important in restoring confidence in the objectivity and fairness of science funding decisions. Likewise, small institutions can improve their research success by more strongly supporting productive researchers and developing competitive graduate programming opportunities.

So Much to Read, So Little Time: How Do We Read, and Can Speed Reading Help?

The prospect of speed reading--reading at an increased speed without any loss of comprehension--has undeniable appeal. Speed reading has been an intriguing concept for decades, at least since Evelyn Wood introduced her Reading Dynamics training program in 1959. It has recently increased in popularity, with speed-reading apps and technologies being introduced for smartphones and digital devices. The current article reviews what the scientific community knows about the reading process--a great deal--and discusses the implications of the research findings for potential students of speed-reading training programs or purchasers of speed-reading apps. The research shows that there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy. It is unlikely that readers will be able to double or triple their reading speeds (e.g., from around 250 to 500-750 words per minute) while still being able to understand the text as well as if they read at normal speed. If a thorough understanding of the text is not the reader's goal, then speed reading or skimming the text will allow the reader to get through it faster with moderate comprehension. The way to maintain high comprehension and get through text faster is to practice reading and to become a more skilled language user (e.g., through increased vocabulary). This is because language skill is at the heart of reading speed.

Toward a deeper understanding of embodiment.

This article sets the stage for a debate, played out in two subsequent articles in this issue by Glenberg and by Mahon, regarding the role of embodied conceptual representations in cognitive operations such as language understanding and object identification. On an embodied view of cognition, championed by Glenberg, conceptual knowledge and thought are necessarily grounded in sensorimotor representations. The contrary position, advocated by Mahon, is that symbolic thought is the foundation for cognition and is independent of such representations, although it may coincidentally evoke them. I review a few of the many available demonstrations showing that cognition is influenced by sensorimotor representations. Then, taking Mahon's perspective, I illustrate how examples from various classes of these demonstrations can be explained by mechanisms other than embodiment of conceptual representations. I close with an example of what can be taken as evidence for the representation of a behavioural goal that is abstract in the sense that it is not coded directly as an embodied action.

Fluency can bias masked priming of binary judgments: evidence from an all-nonword task.

Using a novel all-nonword task ("Does the target have more vowels than consonants?"), new evidence is provided showing that processing fluency can bias masked priming of binary judgments. Two experiments revealed masked repetition priming for "yes" nonwords (e.g., NUISO) but not for "no" nonwords (e.g., RULON). This pattern is considered evidence that the greater ease of target processing induced by repetition primes was attributed to the target being a member of the response category associated with shorter RTs, namely the "yes" response category. This pattern of nonword priming effects reinforces Bodner and Masson's (1997) key claims: (a) a fluency-attribution process can influence masked priming, and (b) therefore, the masked-priming paradigm does not isolate lexical processes.

Components of action representations evoked when identifying manipulable objects.

We examined the influence of holding planned hand actions in working memory on the time taken to visually identify objects with handles. Features of the hand actions and position of the object's handle were congruent or incongruent on two dimensions: alignment (left vs. right) and orientation (horizontal vs. vertical). When an object was depicted in an upright view, subjects were slower to name it when its handle was congruent with the planned hand actions on one dimension but incongruent on the other, relative to when the object handle and actions were congruent on both or neither dimension. This pattern is consistent with many other experiments demonstrating that a cost occurs when there is partial feature overlap between a planned action and a perceived target. An opposite pattern of results was obtained when the depicted object appeared in a 90° rotated view (e.g., a beer mug on its side), suggesting that the functional goal associated with the object (e.g., drinking from an upright beer mug) was taken into account during object perception and that this knowledge superseded the influence of the action afforded by the depicted view of the object. These results have implications for the relationship between object perception and action representations, and for the mechanisms that support the identification of rotated objects.

Time course of action representations evoked during sentence comprehension.

The nature of hand-action representations evoked during language comprehension was investigated using a variant of the visual-world paradigm in which eye fixations were monitored while subjects viewed a screen displaying four hand postures and listened to sentences describing an actor using or lifting a manipulable object. Displayed postures were related to either a functional (using) or volumetric (lifting) interaction with an object that matched or did not match the object mentioned in the sentence. Subjects were instructed to select the hand posture that matched the action described in the sentence. Even before the manipulable object was mentioned in the sentence, some sentence contexts allowed subjects to infer the object's identity and the type of action performed with it and eye fixations immediately favored the corresponding hand posture. This effect was assumed to be the result of ongoing motor or perceptual imagery in which the action described in the sentence was mentally simulated. In addition, the hand posture related to the manipulable object mentioned in a sentence, but not related to the described action (e.g., a writing posture in the context of a sentence that describes lifting, but not using, a pencil), was favored over other hand postures not related to the object. This effect was attributed to motor resonance arising from conceptual processing of the manipulable object, without regard to the remainder of the sentence context.

Embodied effects of conceptual knowledge continuously perturb the hand in flight.

Attending to a manipulable object evokes a mental representation of hand actions associated with the object's form and function. In one view, these representations are sufficiently abstract that their competing influence on an unrelated action is confined to the planning stages of movement and does not affect its on-line control. Alternatively, an object may evoke action representations that affect the entire trajectory of an unrelated grasping action. We developed a new methodology to statistically analyze the forward motion and rotation of the hand and fingers under different task conditions. Using this novel approach, we established that a grasping action executed after seeing a photograph of an object is systematically perturbed even into the late stages of its trajectory by the competing influence of the grasping posture associated with the object. Our results show that embodied effects of conceptual knowledge continuously modulate the hand in flight.