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Gender in action: Stereotype effects in the action observation-verb processing link
Christel Bidet-Ildei1, Theodore Alexopoulos2, Leila Selimbegovic3
1Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition et l'Apprentissage, Université de Poitiers, Université de Tours, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UMR7295, France; Institut Universitaire de France, France.
Acta Psychologica
|June 1, 2026
Summary
Gender stereotypes impact how we process action language, weakening the link between observing and understanding actions, especially for women. This suggests social context actively shapes embodied cognition.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Social Psychology
- Embodied Cognition
Background:
- Embodied cognition research highlights a strong connection between action verb processing and action observation, often explained by shared sensorimotor systems.
- The influence of social context, specifically gender stereotypes, on this action-language coupling remains largely unexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether gender stereotypes modulate the interaction between action observation and language processing.
- To examine the role of stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent actions in influencing action-language coupling.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments utilized a primed action-language task.
- Participants viewed images of stereotype-consistent or inconsistent actions preceding action verbs.
- Response times were measured to assess facilitation effects.
Main Results:
- Experiment 1 showed that stereotype-consistent primes weakened action-language facilitation for female participants.
- Experiment 2 replicated this modulation across both genders in a larger online sample.
- The congruence effect between action observation and language processing was significantly altered by gender stereotypes.
Conclusions:
- Socially shared gender stereotypes actively moderate embodied action-language interactions.
- These modulations may occur via attentional, predictive mechanisms, or activation of supra-categorical semantic representations.
- Findings underscore the dynamic interplay between social cognition and sensorimotor processes in language comprehension.
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