EXPRESS: Action verbs in narrative comprehension: Salience and revision under different communicative goals

Research on embodied cognition has shown that sentences with action verbs engage motor processes more strongly than sentences with attentional verbs, leading to enhanced memory for single assertions. This study investigates the salience of action verbs compared to attentional verbs in narrative comprehension by mental models and whether this is influenced by different communicative goals. Participants read a short crime scenario, imagined themselves as perpetrators, and were assigned to one of three communicative-goal groups: Truth-teller, Liar, or Counterfactual-Thinker. We examined which events were salient during prompted recall and how events were modified under deceptive and counterfactual goals. Results showed that events described with action verbs were more salient than those described with attentional verbs, regardless of communicative goals. Moreover, when required to revise the salient event under deceptive or counterfactual goals, participants preferentially used action verbs to modify events rather than attentional verbs. These findings suggest that action verbs play a privileged role in both the salience of events and their subsequent revision within narrative mental models regardless of communicative goals, consistent with embodied accounts of language comprehension.