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Norms for 439 action events: Familiarity, emotionality, motor activity, and memorability
Author(s) -
Molander Bo,
Arar Ljiljana
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9450.00087
Subject(s) - psychology , emotionality , action (physics) , social psychology , norm (philosophy) , dimension (graph theory) , developmental psychology , scale (ratio) , cognitive psychology , pure mathematics , law , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , political science
A total of 128 male and female university students having Swedish as their mother tongue rated 439 actions on a 7‐point scale in the dimensions of Familiarity, Emotionality, Motor Activity, and Memorability under instructions to imagine themselves performing each action (e.g., “to roll a ball”, “to break a match”). Overall mean ratings were higher for women than for men in all four dimensions. High reliabilities were obtained in each scale. Intercorrelations between the dimensions were low to moderate, indicating that different characteristics of the actions were assessed. It is demonstrated that the ratings of the four dimensions are in agreement with previous categorisations of actions along the same or similar dimensions and with findings related to memory performance. Furthermore, control studies performed on the Familiarity dimension show that norm values are highly correlated with ratings given by participants in standard enacting and nonenacting conditions and with ratings in a condition where objects were present. These norms offer possibilities to control for and vary item characteristics of importance in the study of actions and the memory of actions.