On the emergence of the in-out effect across trials: two items do the trick

Grounded cognition and the representation of momentum: abstract concepts modulate mislocalization

Literature on grounded cognition argues that mental representations of concepts, even abstract concepts, involve modal simulations. These modalities are typically assumed to reside within the body, such as in the sensorimotor system. A recent proposal argues that physical invariants, such as momentum or gravity, can also be substrates in which concepts can be grounded, expanding the assumed limits of grounding beyond the body. We here experimentally assessed this proposal by exploiting the representational momentum effect and the abstract concept of success. If success is grounded in the physical invariant momentum, the representational momentum effect should be larger for successful targets. We tested this hypothesis across four experiments (three pre-registered). In a surprising finding, we find hints that large trial numbers may hinder being able to find a representational momentum effect, which should be further investigated in future research. Regarding the central hypothesis, although only one experiment found statistically significant support, the effect tended toward the same direction in the three others as well. In order to draw robust conclusions about the results, we performed a mini meta, which aggregates the effects and inference statistics across the N = 271 participants. Across the four experiments, this effect was statistically significant, suggesting evidence in favor of the central hypothesis. These results should be interpreted with caution as there was inconsistency across experiments, suggesting the magnitude of the effect is small, and when asked who they believe moved faster, participants did not reliably indicate the successful target.

Can sequencing of articulation ease explain the in-out effect? A preregistered test

Words whose consonantal articulation places move from the front of the mouth to the back (e.g. BADAKA; inward) receive more positive evaluations than words whose consonantal articulation places move from the back of the mouth to the front (e.g. KADABA; outward). This in-out effect has a variety of affective, cognitive, and even behavioural consequences, but its underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Most recently, a linguistic explanation has been proposed applying the linguistic easy-first account and the so-called labial-coronal effect from developmental speech research and phonology to the in-out effect: Labials (front) are easier to process than coronals (middle); and people prefer easy followed by harder motor components. Disentangling consonantal articulation direction and articulation place, the present three preregistered experiments (total N = 1012) found in-out effects for coronal-dorsal (back), and labial-dorsal articulation places. Critically, no in-out effect emerged for labial-coronal articulation places. Thus, the in-out effect is unlikely an instantiation of easy first.