What is preferred in the in-out effect: articulation locations or articulation movement direction?

Words whose consonant articulation locations move inward (from the front to the back of the mouth) are preferred over words with the opposite consonant articulation location direction, a phenomenon termed the in-out effect. Recently, an alternative explanation for the in-out effect has been proposed based on position-weighted consonant preferences instead of articulation location movement preferences. However, this explanation has only been tested with word fragments. In two experiments, we tested these explanations using both, word fragment and pseudo-word stimuli. For word fragments, preferences could be explained by position-weighted consonant preferences, while, for pseudo-words, stimuli containing articulation location movement were evaluated more favourably than stimuli not containing articulation location movement. Thus, the in-out effect for word stimuli depends on movement of articulation locations. This finding demonstrates that a word's sound symbolic meaning cannot always be explained by its individual letters but can depend on letter sequences.

Oral kinematics: examining the role of edibility and valence in the in-out effect

Previous research has revealed a stable preference for words with inward consonantal-articulation patterns (from the front to the back of the mouth; e.g. BENOKA), over outward-words (from the back to the front; e.g. KENOBA). Following the oral approach-avoidance account suggesting that the in-out effect is due to the resemblance between consonantal-articulations patterns and ingestion/expectoration, recent findings have shown that when judging inward-outward names for objects with particular oral functions, valence did not modulate the effect while the oral function did. To replicate and examine further the role of edibility and valence in shaping the in-out effect, we asked participants (N = 545) to rate inward and outward names for edible and non-edible products while controlling for valence. Results revealed that the motor-to-affect link was only observed for edible products, regardless of valence.