Department of Psychology and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
Behav Res Methods. 2019 Feb;51(1):1-13. doi: 10.3758/s13428-018-1072-1.
One of the strategies that researchers have used to investigate the role of sensorimotor information in lexical-semantic processing is to examine the effects of words' rated body-object interaction (BOI; i.e., the ease with which the human body can interact with a word's referent). Processing tends to be facilitated for words with high as compared with low BOI, across a wide variety of tasks. Such effects have been referenced in debates over the nature of semantic representations, but their theoretical import has been limited by the fact that BOI is a fairly coarse measure of sensorimotor experience with words' referents. In the present study, we collected ratings for 621 words on seven semantic dimensions (graspability, ease of pantomime, number of actions, animacy, size, danger, and usefulness), in order to investigate which attributes are most strongly related to BOI ratings and to lexical-semantic processing. BOI ratings were obtained from previous norming studies (Bennett, Burnett, Siakaluk, & Pexman in Behavior Research Methods, 43, 1100-1109, 2011; Tillotson, Siakaluk, & Pexman in Behavior Research Methods, 40, 1075-1078, 2008), and measures of lexical-semantic processing were obtained from previous behavioral megastudies involving either the semantic categorization task (concrete/abstract decision; Pexman, Heard, Lloyd, & Yap in Behavior Research Methods, 49, 407-417, 2017) or the lexical decision task (Balota et al., Behavior Research Methods, 39, 445-459, 2007). The results showed that the motor dimensions of graspability, ease of pantomime, and number of actions were all related to BOI, and that these dimensions together explained more variance in semantic processing than did the BOI ratings alone. These ratings will be useful for researchers who wish to study how different kinds of bodily interactions influence lexical-semantic processing and cognition.
研究人员在研究感觉运动信息在词汇语义处理中的作用时，使用的策略之一是研究词汇的身体-物体相互作用（BOI；即人体与词汇所指对象相互作用的容易程度）评分的影响。在各种任务中，高 BOI 词汇的处理往往比低 BOI 词汇更容易。这些影响在关于语义表示性质的争论中被引用，但由于 BOI 是对词汇所指对象的感觉运动经验的相当粗糙的衡量标准，因此其理论意义有限。在本研究中，我们收集了 621 个单词在七个语义维度（可抓握性、手势模拟容易度、动作数量、生动性、大小、危险度和有用度）上的评分，以研究哪些属性与 BOI 评分和词汇语义处理关系最密切。BOI 评分来自之前的标准化研究（Bennett、Burnett、Siakaluk 和 Pexman 在《行为研究方法》，43，1100-1109，2011；Tillotson、Siakaluk 和 Pexman 在《行为研究方法》，40，1075-1078，2008），而词汇语义处理的测量则来自之前的行为巨量研究，涉及语义分类任务（具体/抽象决策；Pexman、Heard、Lloyd 和 yap 在《行为研究方法》，49，407-417，2017）或词汇决策任务（Balota 等人，《行为研究方法》，39，445-459，2007）。结果表明，可抓握性、手势模拟容易度和动作数量这三个运动维度都与 BOI 相关，并且这些维度一起比单独的 BOI 评分更能解释语义处理的变化。这些评分将对希望研究不同类型的身体互动如何影响词汇语义处理和认知的研究人员有用。
