Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Schleichstr. 4, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2022 Oct;230:103712. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103712. Epub 2022 Sep 11.
The embodied account of language comprehension has been one of the most influential theoretical developments in the recent decades addressing the question how humans comprehend and represent language. To examine its assumptions, many studies have made use of behavioral paradigms involving basic compatibility effects. The action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE) is one of the most influential of these compatibility effects and is the most widely cited evidence for the embodied account of language comprehension. However, recently there have been difficulties in extending or even in reliably replicating the ACE. The conflicting findings concerning the ACE and its extensions lead to the discussion of whether the ACE is indeed a reliable effect. In a first step we conducted a meta-analysis using a random-effects model. This analysis revealed a small but significant effect size of the ACE. Furthermore, the task-parameter Delay occurred as a factor of interest in whether the ACE appears with positive or negative effect direction. A second meta-analytic approach (Fisher's method) supports these findings. Additionally, an analysis of publication bias suggests that there is bias in the ACE literature. In post-hoc analyses of the recent multi-lab investigation of the ACE (Morey et al., 2021), evidence for individual differences in the ACE was found. However, further analyses indicate that these differences are likely due to item-specific variability and the specific way in which items were assigned to conditions in the counterbalancing lists.
语言理解的具身理论是近几十年来解决人类如何理解和表达语言这一问题的最有影响力的理论发展之一。为了检验其假设，许多研究利用了涉及基本兼容性效应的行为范式。动作-句子兼容性效应（ACE）是这些兼容性效应中最有影响力的一个，也是语言理解具身理论最广泛引用的证据。然而，最近在扩展甚至可靠复制 ACE 方面遇到了困难。ACE 及其扩展的相互矛盾的发现导致了关于 ACE 是否确实是一个可靠效应的讨论。在第一步中，我们使用随机效应模型进行了元分析。该分析显示 ACE 的效应量虽小但具有统计学意义。此外，任务参数延迟作为 ACE 出现正或负效应方向的一个因素出现。第二种元分析方法（Fisher 法）支持这些发现。此外，对 ACE 文献中发表偏差的分析表明，存在偏差。在对 ACE 的最近多实验室研究（Morey 等人，2021）的事后分析中，发现了 ACE 中个体差异的证据。然而，进一步的分析表明，这些差异可能是由于项目特异性的可变性以及在平衡列表中为条件分配项目的特定方式造成的。
