The results of Experiment 4 yielded an interesting finding. We found an effect of grammatical aspect on the blame of John (the person that gets punched) for the scuffle and the injury. More specifically, we found that when the action of Mark (the person that punches) is described in imperfective, people attribute more blame to John for the scuffle and the injury than when the action of Mark is described in perfective. We figured that reading about Mark punching John might lead people to think that Mark is not just punching John over and over again without any (re)action from John. It could be the case that people imagine John punching Mark back every time. In that case, reading Mark was punching implies more punches from John than reading Mark punched. This hypothesis will be tested in Experiment 4.1 by adding a temporal dynamics question for the number of punches from John. Because there is no mention of John punching Mark in the vignette, we framed our question as follows:
Based on the description of the incident, do you think that John punched Mark too? If so, please indicate the number of times in the text box below.
Apart from this additional question, Experiment 4.1 does not deviate from Experiment 4.