Motor system involvement in word comprehension: faster comprehension of action words

The present study investigates the circumstances under which a modified action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE), termed here as the action compatibility effect, can be observed. The ACE exposes a relationship between movement (a duty of the motor system) and implied direction of sensical sentence, while the action compatibility effect focuses on a relationship between movement and implied direction of verb. Instead of using sensical and nonsensical sentences as in the ACE, the action compatibility effect experiment uses isolated verbs and adjectives. In the current experiment, the action compatibility effect, a demonstration of motor system involvement in understanding language, was not observed as compatible verbs and incompatible verbs did not yield statistically different response times (RTs). Compatible verbs occur when the participant’s movement matches the implied direction of the verb; likewise, incompatible verbs occur when the participant’s movement conflicts with the implied direction of the verb. Words tested were further categorized into additional categories, and similar average RTs were obtained. The impact of these findings is discussed as to their implications on compatibility effect experiments in general as well as the embodied theory of language comprehension. Lastly, suggestions for future compatibility effect experiments are discussed.