Importantly, the present results de

Importantly, the present results demonstrate that semantic richness effects extend to word classes beyond concrete nouns, which have been the focus of previous studies. Despite the fact that they are less imageable (Allport & Funnell, 1981), the present study demonstrates that verbs can generate other semantic richness effects. We have established that relative embodiment is one such semantic richness effect. Further, we suggest that it is important that other candidate dimensions of verb meaning be evaluated in future research. For instance, Gennari and Poeppel (2003) showed that lexical decisions were slower to verbs that evoke an event structure than to verbs that denote facts without causal structure. This aspect of verb conceptual complexity could be extended to a larger number of verb stimuli and then compared to effects of relative embodiment. While many aspects of verb meaning are likely to be distinct from those of noun meaning, others (such as those derived from an embodiment framework) may overlap. For instance, several researchers have now shown that dimensions that capture survival information, or death avoidance (e.g., Amsel et al., 2013, Wurm et al., 2004) are related to lexical processing of nouns, and it seems possible that this dimension could also extend to verb meaning.