No abstract

The present study was part of a doetoral dissertation eondueted at the University of South Carolina under the supervision of Dr. Roger W. Blaek. The author wishes to thank Dr. Blaek tor his invaluable assistanee. The help of Robert Jewett, Dr. Leste. Shine, and the University of Dayton Computer Center in analyzing the data is also appreciated.

Sixty subjects repeated each of six words for 30 seconds, this repetition accompanied by one of three actions (a no-action control or an action concordant or discordant to the repeated word's meaning), as the subject looked or did not look at the accompanying action. Satiation of meaning resulted from discordant actions, generation from concordant actions, and no change with no action. The amount-of-meaning change varied as a function of which semantic differential scale was used, but not as a function of looking or not looking. It was concluded that peripheral activity can influence a word's meaning.