In response to recommendations to redefine statistical significance to p ≤ .005, we propose that researchers should transparently report and justify all choices they make when designing a study, including the alpha level.
We demonstrate how a particular type of knowledge about objects, their spatial locations and thus how to direct actions toward them, contributes to the comprehension of language about those objects. In four experiments, participants judged if sentences were about normal objects (e.g., ''The apple has a stem'') or odd objects (e.g., ''The apple has an antenna''). The Normal response key was either on the left of a response box or on the right. The named objects were themselves either on the left or the right of the response box. We demonstrate a compatibility e¤ect in which responding Normal to the side where the object was located was faster than responding Normal to the opposite side. Furthermore, this e¤ect was equally strong for sentences describing states of the objects (as above) and sentences describing actions (e.g., ''Touch the apple at the stem''); the compatibility e¤ect was found when the objects were removed; the e¤ect required compatibility between actions, not just spatial locations; and the e¤ect was found in both English and German. The results are discussed in relation to how action systems are used in language comprehension.
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