Muraki Emiko J, Born Sydney, Pexman Penny M
Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
Department of Psychology, Western University, London, Canada.
J Cogn. 2025 Jan 7;8(1):12. doi: 10.5334/joc.418. eCollection 2025.
Word norming datasets have become an important resource for psycholinguistic research, and they are based on the underlying assumption that individual differences are inconsequential to the measurement of semantic dimensions. In this pre-registered study we tested this assumption by examining whether individual differences in motor imagery are related to variance in semantic ratings. We collected graspability ratings (i.e., how easily a word's referent can be grasped using one hand) for 350 words and also had each participant complete a series of motor imagery questionnaires. Using linear mixed effect models we tested whether measures of motor imagery ability (e.g., the Florida Praxis Imagery Questionnaire and the Test of Ability in Movement Imagery for Hands) and motor imagery vividness (e.g., the Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire 2) could account for variance (raw and absolute difference scores) in graspability ratings. We observed a significant relationship between motor imagery vividness and absolute rating difference scores, wherein people with more vivid motor imagery provided ratings that were further from the mean word ratings. However there was no relationship between motor imagery and raw rating difference scores. The results suggest that there are measurable systematic differences in how participants make sensorimotor semantic ratings, which has implications for how sensorimotor semantic word norms are used for investigations of lexical semantic processing.
词汇规范数据集已成为心理语言学研究的重要资源，它们基于这样一种潜在假设，即个体差异对于语义维度的测量无关紧要。在这项预先注册的研究中，我们通过检验运动意象的个体差异是否与语义评级的方差相关来测试这一假设。我们收集了350个单词的可抓握性评级（即一个单词的所指对象用一只手能多容易被抓住），并且让每位参与者完成一系列运动意象问卷。使用线性混合效应模型，我们测试了运动意象能力的测量指标（例如，佛罗里达动作意象问卷和手部运动意象能力测试）和运动意象生动性（例如，运动意象生动性问卷2）是否能够解释可抓握性评级中的方差（原始分数和绝对差异分数）。我们观察到运动意象生动性与绝对评级差异分数之间存在显著关系，即运动意象更生动的人给出的评级与单词平均评级的差距更大。然而，运动意象与原始评级差异分数之间没有关系。结果表明，参与者在进行感觉运动语义评级时存在可测量的系统差异，这对感觉运动语义词汇规范如何用于词汇语义加工的研究具有启示意义。
