Previous research has obtained better memory performance for items that were studied in two modalities than in one modality. We investigated the role of multisensory integration and of study-test overlap. Items were presented once as unimodal (picture or sound), once as bimodal (picture and sound), or twice as unimodal (once as picture, once as sound) stimuli in a continuous recognition task. In Experiment 1 we found a benefit for items that were studied in both modalities. The benefit did not depend on temporal alignment of picture and sound, which poses problems for multisensory integration as an explanation. In Experiment 2 we found that repetition of items in the same modality resulted in better memory performance than repetition in different modalities, and we found that memory performance was better when study and test format were the same than when they were different, supporting a role for encoding specificity. We conclude that multimodal presentation during study benefits memory only when the test item is also multimodal. Moreover, this benefit is more likely explained by study-test overlap than by multisensory integration.

Studies have provided some evidence for a benefit of congruent multisensory study format on short-term recognition memory for pictures and sounds, even when the secondary modality is task-irrelevant. In long-term memory paradigms the evidence is mixed. In a series of 4 experiments, we used a study and recognition task to investigate the effect of multisensory study in long-term memory for pictures and sounds, when the secondary modality was either task-relevant or task-irrelevant. We found no evidence for multisensory benefits on recognition memory for pictures irrespective of whether the auditory modality was task-relevant or not and a benefit of multisensory study on recognition memory for sounds only when the visual modality was task-irrelevant. Across experiments, recognition memory for pictures was superior to recognition memory for sounds. Our results suggest that multisensory benefits may be restricted to sounds because sound is cognitively less salient than vision.

An important issue in the semantic memory literature concerns the relative importance of experience-based sensorimotor versus language corpus-based distributional information in conceptual representations. To explore how each contributes to behavioral and neural responses on a conceptual task, EEG and RTs were recorded as healthy young adults viewed terms for concepts (e.g., "APPLE") followed by properties (e.g., "red") and pressed a button to indicate whether the property is true or false for the concept. Next, we constructed a series of mixed effects models of response times (RTs) and single-trial electroencephalogram (EEG) responses to the property words. Distributional models predicted data using semantic distance measures (e.g., between "APPLE" and "red") derived from language corpus-based measures developed by computational linguists. Sensorimotor models predicted data using sensorimotor distance, a measure based on comparisons of each word's experiential strength on the perceptual and action-effector dimensions from the crowd-sourced Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms. Statistical model comparison was used to determine whether the data was best fit by Distributional, Sensorimotor, or both sorts of information. In keeping with hybrid accounts of semantic memory, we find that both measures of semantic distance explained unique variance for behavioral and neural measures. Modelling EEG across seven successive 100-ms intervals revealed that the predictors' temporal dynamics varies between true (APPLE - red) and false (APPLE - black) trials, but showed early sensorimotor activation for both. Results show how linguistic context and task demands modulate the recruitment of different information sources, supporting dynamic hybrid accounts of semantic memory.

Pictures of objects are verified faster when they match the implied orientation, shape, and color in a sentence-picture verification task, suggesting that people mentally simulate these features during language comprehension. Previous studies had an unintended correlation between match status and the required response, which may have influenced participants' responses by eliciting strategic use of this correlation. We removed this correlation by including color-matching filler trials and investigated if the color-match effect was still obtained. In both a native sample (Experiment 1) and a non-native sample (Experiment 2), we found strong evidence for a color-match advantage on median reaction time and error rates. Our results are consistent with the view that color is automatically simulated during language comprehension as predicted by the grounded cognition framework.

Barsalou (1999) proposes that conceptual knowledge is represented by mental simulations containing perceptual information derived from actual experiences. Although a substantial number of studies have provided evidence consistent with this view in native language comprehension, it remains unclear whether the non-native language comprehension processes also include mental simulations. The current study successfully replicates the shape match effect in sentence-picture verification (Zwaan et al., 2002) for non-native English language comprehenders, indicating native-like visual simulations. In addition, participants displayed better delayed recognition memory when the shape of the depicted objects matched the shape that was implied by the sentence than when it did not, suggesting that visual simulations were generated spontaneously in naturalistic non-native language comprehension. Additional correlational analyses revealed no relationship between English proficiency and the size of the match effect.

Recently, researchers have expressed challenges in conducting word-learning experiments in adult populations due to limited availability of normed stimulus materials. This constraint often prompts the use of low-frequency or low-prevalence words, introducing the potential influence of prior knowledge or direct translation to familiar words. In response, we developed novel abstract concepts devoid of word referents, providing better control over prior knowledge. These new concepts describe situations encountered in various settings for which there is no existing word in English. The resulting database comprises 42 normed New Abstract Concepts, offering unique materials structured through scenarios, each containing similar and dissimilar exemplars. These materials underwent meticulous norming for relatability and similarity levels across a series of studies. The success of our approach was demonstrated in a word-learning experiment examining the effects of similarity and diversity. The database serves as a valuable resource for selecting stimuli in experiments exploring the learning of abstract semantic concepts, particularly investigating the role of similarity versus diversity in concept learning. The database is available on OSF (https://osf.io/svm2p/).

Studies have found a multisensory memory benefit: higher recognition accuracy for unimodal test items that were studied as bimodal items than for those studied as unimodal items. This is a surprising finding because the encoding specificity principle predicts that memory performance should be better with greater overlap between processing during study and test. We used Thelen, Talsma, and Murray's (2015) method who previously found a multisensory memory benefit. Items were presented as unimodal (picture or sound) or bimodal (picture and sound) items in a continuous recognition task in which only one modality was task-relevant. In four experiments we obtained little evidence for a difference in memory performance between items studied as unimodal or bimodal stimuli, but there was a benefit of study-test overlap in format if sound was the task-relevant modality. Task-induced attention for the irrelevant modality or response bias may have played a role in previous studies. We conclude that the multisensory memory benefit may not be a general finding, but rather one that is found only under conditions that induce participants to pay attention to the task-irrelevant modality.

The actions associated with objects are thought to be automatically activated when processing object names. Recent studies, however, have failed to find evidence for a role of the motor system in long-term memory for objects. One exception is a study by van Dam et al. (2013) in which participants studied object names associated with pressing (e.g., doorbell) or twisting (e.g., jar), followed by pressing or twisting actions in a seemingly unrelated task. In the final memory test, performance for action congruent words was better than for action incongruent words. We aimed to generalize these findings. In Experiments 1 and 2, we found no effect of action congruency on repetition priming in lexical decision and man-made/natural decision. In Experiment 3, the action congruency manipulation was administered immediately after initial study or a day later, just prior to the recognition memory test. We found no effects of action congruency and timing of the action. Finally, Experiment 4 was a direct replication of Experiment 1 of van Dam et al. (2013). Again, we failed to find an effect of poststudy action congruency. Thus, we obtained no evidence for the view that motor actions play a role in long-term memory for objects.

The grasp compatibility effect has been put forward as evidence for the automatic involvement of the motor system during mental object representation. In three experiments, participants responded to object pictures or names by grasping cylinders using a precision or power grasp. In a two-choice task in which both grasps were used, we obtained grasp compatibility effects, but in a go/no-go task, in which only one grasp was used, there was no effect. These results indicate that the effect depends on the availability of response choice, in the present case, different size grasps. This suggests that grasp compatibility effects are better explained by coding of the stimulus and response on the same dimension, size, rather than automatic activation of a motor action towards the object.

Research suggests that responses to pictures of manipulable objects are facilitated when the location of the response is aligned with the side of the object handle. One interpretation of alignment effects is that object identification results in the automatic activation of actions associated with the object. Alignment effects are, however, not ubiquitously found. Yu, Abrams, and Zacks (2014) found an alignment effect when participants were instructed to imagine picking up the pictured objects while making upright-inverted judgments. Six other experiments, which did not use such instructions, found no alignment effect. One interpretation is that motor-imagery instructions draw attention to the graspable parts of an object, which results in the activation of actions associated with the object. This account predicts that alignment effects are restricted to responses with the left and right hand. An alternative interpretation is that motor-imagery instructions result in the formation of abstract spatial codes for left versus right. This spatial coding account predicts that alignment effects are present for other types of responses that involve a left-right dimension. Consistent with the latter account, we found that alignment effects were found even when participants responded with the index and middle finger of the same hand or with their left and right feet. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Grounded theories of cognition claim that concept representation relies on the systems for perception and action. The sensory-motor grounding of abstract concepts presents a challenge for these theories. Some accounts propose that abstract concepts are indirectly grounded via image schemas or situations. Recent research, however, indicates that the role of sensory-motor processing for concrete concepts may be limited, providing evidence against the idea that abstract concepts are grounded via concrete concepts. Hybrid models that combine language and sensory-motor experience may provide a more viable account of abstract and concrete representations. We propose that sensory-motor grounding is important during acquisition and provides structure to concepts. Later activation of concepts relies on this structure but does not necessarily involve sensory-motor processing. Language is needed to create coherent concepts from diverse sensory-motor experiences. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain’.

Previous studies have shown action potentiation during conceptual processing of manipulable objects. In four experiments, we investigated whether these motor actions also play a role in long-term memory. Participants categorized objects that afforded either a power grasp or a precision grasp as natural or artifact by grasping cylinders with either a power grasp or a precision grasp. In all experiments, responses were faster when the affordance of the object was compatible with the type of grasp response. However, subsequent free recall and recognition memory tasks revealed no better memory for object pictures and object names for which the grasp affordance was compatible with the grasp response. The present results therefore do not support the hypothesis that motor actions play a role in long-term memory.

Mere exposure (i.e., stimulus repetition) and blending (i.e., stimulus averaging) are classic ways to increase social preferences, including facial attractiveness. In both effects, increases in preference involve enhanced familiarity. Prominent memory theories assume that familiarity depends on a match between the target and similar items in memory. These theories predict that when individual items are weakly learned, their blends (morphs) should be relatively familiar, and thus liked-a beauty-in-averageness effect (BiA). However, when individual items are strongly learned, they are also more distinguishable. This "differentiation" hypothesis predicts that with strongly encoded items, familiarity (and thus, preference) for the blend will be relatively lower than individual items-an ugliness-in-averageness effect (UiA). We tested this novel theoretical prediction in 5 experiments. Experiment 1 showed that with weak learning, facial morphs were more attractive than contributing individuals (BiA effect). Experiments 2A and 2B demonstrated that when participants first strongly learned a subset of individual faces (either in a face-name memory task or perceptual-tracking task), morphs of trained individuals were less attractive than the trained individuals (UiA effect). Experiment 3 showed that changes in familiarity for the trained morph (rather than interstimulus conflict) drove the UiA effect. Using a within-subjects design, Experiment 4 mapped out the transition from BiA to UiA solely as a function of memory training. Finally, computational modeling using a well-known memory framework (REM) illustrated the familiarity transition observed in Experiment 4. Overall, these results highlight how memory processes illuminate classic and modern social preference phenomena. (PsycINFO Database Record

Many argue that there is a reproducibility crisis in psychology. We investigated nine well-known effects from the cognitive psychology literature—three each from the domains of perception/action, memory, and language, respectively—and found that they are highly reproducible. Not only can they be reproduced in online environments, but they also can be reproduced with nonnaïve participants with no reduction of effect size. Apparently, some cognitive tasks are so constraining that they encapsulate behavior from external influences, such as testing situation and prior recent experience with the experiment to yield highly robust effects.

This article provides norms for general taboo, personal taboo, insult, valence, and arousal for 672 Dutch words, including 202 taboo words. Norms were collected using a 7-point Likert scale and based on ratings by psychology students from the Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Netherlands. The sample consisted of 87 psychology students (58 females, 29 males). We obtained high reliability based on split-half analyses. Our norms show high correlations with arousal and valence ratings collected by another Dutch word-norms study (Moors et al.,, Behavior Research Methods, 45, 169–177, 2013). Our results show that the previously found quadratic relation (i.e., U-shaped pattern) between valence and arousal also holds when only taboo words are considered. Additionally, words rated high on taboo tended to be rated low on valence, but some words related to sex rated high on both taboo and valence. Words that rated high on taboo rated high on insult, again with the exception of words related to sex many of which rated low on insult. Finally, words rated high on taboo and insult rated high on arousal. The Dutch Taboo Norms (DTN) database is a useful tool for researchers interested in the effects of taboo words on cognitive processing. The data associated with this paper can be accessed via the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/vk782/).

Priming is arguably one of the key phenomena in contemporary social psychology. Recent retractions and failed replication attempts have led to a division in the field between proponents and skeptics and have reinforced the importance of confirming certain priming effects through replication. In this study, we describe the results of 2 preregistered replication attempts of 1 experiment by Förster and Denzler (2012). In both experiments, participants first processed letters either globally or locally, then were tested using a typicality rating task. Bayes factor hypothesis tests were conducted for both experiments: Experiment 1 (N = 100) yielded an indecisive Bayes factor of 1.38, indicating that the in-lab data are 1.38 times more likely to have occurred under the null hypothesis than under the alternative. Experiment 2 (N = 908) yielded a Bayes factor of 10.84, indicating strong support for the null hypothesis that global priming does not affect participants' mean typicality ratings. The failure to replicate this priming effect challenges existing support for the GLOMOsys model. (PsycINFO Database Record

Behavioral and neuroimaging data suggest that the actions associated with objects and words are automatically activated during object and word recognition. For example, recognition of a hammer activates the grip that is used to grasp a hammer and the actions that are performed when using a hammer. The question addressed in this review is whether these motor simulations support short-term and long-term memory for objects and verbs that are associated with actions. A meta-analysis shows that there is no evidence supporting a role for motor simulations in short-term recognition and n-back tasks. Serial recall tasks, on the other hand, have provided evidence that motor simulations support short-term memory. The majority of these studies, however, used procedures that emphasized actions. These studies do therefore not provide strong evidence for the view that motor actions are automatically activated and encoded in memory. More studies are needed to establish a role for motor actions in short-term memory when actions are not primed by the context of the experiment. Only a few studies have studied the role of motor simulations in long-term memory. The available evidence suggests that motor simulations do not affect encoding in long-term memory. Overall the results cast some doubt on the idea that action has a central role in cognitive processing.