A pre-registered, multi-lab non-replication of the action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE)

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Psycholinguistics
• Embodied Cognition

Background:

• The Action-sentence Compatibility Effect (ACE) suggests motor actions influence language comprehension.
• Specifically, movement direction (e.g., toward/away) may align with sentence action direction.
• This effect has been cited as evidence for embodied language processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a large-scale, multi-lab replication of a specific version of the ACE paradigm.
• To rigorously test the reliability and generalizability of the ACE across different research environments.
• To provide a robust meta-analytic estimate of the ACE's true effect size.

Main Methods:

• A pre-registered, multi-lab study involving 18 independent laboratories.
• Participants performed sensibility judgments on sentences, making movements toward or away from their bodies.
• Data were pooled for a comprehensive meta-analysis to determine the overall effect size.

Main Results:

• None of the 18 participating laboratories reported a statistically reliable ACE.
• The meta-analytic estimate of the ACE's effect size across all labs was effectively zero.
• This indicates a lack of consistent evidence for the phenomenon in this replication.

Conclusions:

• The findings cast significant doubt on the robustness and replicability of the Action-sentence Compatibility Effect.
• The results challenge the strong claims previously made about the role of motor activity in language comprehension.
• Further research may be needed to explore potential moderators or alternative explanations for previously observed ACE phenomena.