Matching between oral inward–outward movements of object names and oral movements associated with denoted objects

ABSTRACT

In eight experiments, we explored matching effects between oral approach–avoidance movements triggered by word articulation and meaning of the objects the words denoted. Participants (total N = 1264) rated their liking for words that featured consonantal muscle stricture spots either wandering inwards (e.g., BODIKA, resembling ingestion movements) or outwards (e.g., KODIBA, resembling expectoration movements). These words were labelled as names for various objects. For objects the use of which entails ingestive oral actions (lemonade and mouthwash) inward words were preferred over outward words. For objects that trigger expectorative oral actions (toxical chemical, pill, and bubble gum) this preference was attenuated or even reversed (outward words were liked more than inward). Valence of the denoted object did not play a role in these modulations. Thus, the sagittal direction of mouth movements during silent reading meaningfully interacted with direction of oral actions associated with the denoted objects.

KEYWORDS:

• Approach–avoidance
• articulation
• embodiment
• implicit attitudes

Acknowledgments

We thank Klaus Rothermund and Hans Phaf for their incredibly valuable input.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹Because particularly the in-out effect for chemicals was interesting and a possibly absent effect in this condition should not be due to lacking power, we arbitrarily collected double as many participants for the chemical than for the lemonade group in Experiment 1b.

²We thank Hans Phaf for pointing us to this issue of native language.

³We thank Hans Phaf for pointing us to this issue.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, TO 705/1–1).