Host: The Japanese Society for Cognitive Psychology
Previous studies have shown that relative embodiment, reflecting the extent to which physical activity is associated with the meaning of a verb, affects English verb processing. On the basis of a Japanese version of relative embodiment ratings, the effect of relative embodiment on verb processing was examined in this study through three different tasks: naming task, lexical decision task, and verb–noun categorization task. The results revealed that words with higher relative embodiment were processed faster (in the categorization task) and more correctly (in the lexical decision task) than those with lower ratings. These findings suggest that relative embodiment influences Japanese verb processing at the semantic level.
