Evaluating adaptive and attentional accounts of sensorimotor effects in word recognition memory

Words have served as stimuli in memory experiments for over a century. What makes some words stand out in memory compared to others? One plausible answer is that semantically rich words are more distinctive and therefore exhibit a mirror effect in recognition memory experiments where they are likely to be correctly endorsed and also less likely to be confused with other words (Glanzer & Adams, 1985). Semantic richness can arise due to extensive prior experience with the word in multiple contexts but can also arise due to sensorimotor grounding, i.e., direct perceptual and action-based experience with the concepts represented by the words (e.g. pillow, cuddle). However, previous experiments have revealed inconsistent recognition memory performance patterns for words based on different types of sensorimotor grounding (Dymarska et al., 2023). Most surprisingly, body-related words such as 'cuddle' and 'fitness' exhibited greater false alarm rates. 

In the current study, Dymarska and Connell (2025) tested two competing theories that can explain the increased confusability of body-related words: 1) the adaptive account - contextual elaboration-based strategies activate other concepts related to body and survival, increasing confusability; and 2) the attentional account - somatic attentional mechanisms automatically induce similar tactile and interoceptive experiences upon seeing body-related words leading to less distinctive memory traces. The adaptive account leads to different predictions under intentional and incidental memory conditions. Specifically, contextual elaboration strategies are unlikely to be employed when participants do not expect a memory test and therefore in an incidental memory task, body-related words should not lead to inflated false alarm rates (see Hintzman (2011) for a discussion on incidental memory tasks and the importance of how material is processed during memory tasks). However, the attentional account is not dependent on the task instructions or the knowledge about an upcoming memory test.

Here, Dymarska and Connell (2025) undertook an incidental recognition memory experiment with over 5000 words, disguised as a lexical decision task using carefully matched pseudowords during the encoding phase. The sample size was determined by using a sequential hypothesis testing plan with Bayes Factors. To test the predictions of the adaptive and attentional accounts, the authors derived a set of lexical and sensorimotor variables (including a body-component) after dimensionality reduction of a comprehensive set of lexical and semantic word features. The analysis involved running both Bayesian and frequentist hierarchical linear regression to explain four different measures of recognition memory performance based on the key sensorimotor variables and other baseline/confounding variables. While this analysis plan enables a comparison with the earlier results from an expected memory test (Dymarska et al., 2023), the current study is self-contained in that it is possible to distinguish the adaptive and attentional accounts based on the effect of body component scores on hit rate and false alarm rate.

 

Results provided support for the attentional account: body-related words increased false alarms even when attention was not directed to them during the study phase, consistent with a somatic attentional mechanism that causes body-related words to activate tactile and other bodily modalities that render their representations less distinctive as a memory trace and retrieval cue. Overall, the authors conclude that their findings point to a reconsideration of the role of semantic richness in word memory.

The manuscript was evaluated over one round of review, after which the recommenders judged that the submission satisfied the Stage 2 criteria and awarded a positive recommendation.

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/ck5bg
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that was used to answer the research question was generated until after IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

• Advances in Cognitive Psychology
• Collabra: Psychology
• Cortex
• Experimental Psychology
• F1000Research
• Journal of Cognition
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Royal Society Open Science
• Studia Psychologica
• Swiss Psychology Open
   

 

Dymarska, A. & Connell, L. (2025). Sensorimotor Effects in Surprise Word Memory – a Registered Report [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/mg9jt

Dymarska, A., Connell, L. & Banks, B. (2023). More is Not Necessarily Better: How Different Aspects of Sensorimotor Experience Affect Recognition Memory for Words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Language, Memory, Cognition. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001265 

Glanzer, M., & Adams, J. K. (1985). The mirror effect in recognition memory. Memory & Cognition, 13, 8-20. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198438

Hintzman, D. L. (2011). Research strategy in the study of memory: Fads, fallacies, and the search for the “coordinates of truth”. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 253-271. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691611406924