Semantic satiation in healthy young and older adults

Abstract

In four experiments, semantic satiation was investigated in young and old adults. In the first two experiments, subjects were repeatedly presented a word (e.g., DOG) and then were presented a pair of words (e.g., DOG-CAT or DOG-CHAIR) for a relatedness decision. The results of both experiments indicated that for the young adults, the relatedness effect (the difference between response latency on related and unrelated trials) decreased as a function of the number of times the satiated word was repeated, whereas for the older adults, there was no evidence of a decrease in the relatedness effect across repetitions of the satiated word. In the third experiment, we investigated whether phonological codes are also susceptible to satiation. This experiment was similar to the first two experiments with the exception that subjects made rhyme decisions (SAME-CLAIM vs. SAME-DIME) instead of semantic relatedness decisions. The results of this experiment did not yield any evidence of satiation for either the young adults or the older adults. The final experiment eliminated a simple decrease in attentional alertness or fatigue account of the semantic satiation effects found in the first two experiments. In this experiment, the repeated word was always unrelated to the pair of words presented for the relatedness decision, The results of this experiment did not yield any evidence of semantic satiation for either the young or the older adults. The discussion focuses on the mechanisms underlying semantic satiation and the implications of age-related changes in these mechanisms.One of the hallmarks of the cognitive processing system is that the repetition ofa stimulus facilitates the subsequent processing of that stimulus, In this light, it is intriguing that massed excessive exposure to a stimulus can actually inhibit subsequent processing ofthat stimulus, through satiation or habituation. Such a mechanism should have considerable evolutionary significance in that it would serve to bias the attentional system to further process new and changing (information laden) stimuli instead of old and/or static stimuli (MacKay, 1990). The focus of the present series of experiments was to explore a type of habit uation/satiation referred to as semantic satiation: the attenuation in the meaningfulness of a word that occurs as a result ofexcessive exposure to that word.In the present series of experiments, we had two major goals. First, we attempted to extend and further explore recent observations of semantic satiation. As will be discussed below, considerable controversy has surrounded This work was supported by NIA Grants POI AG03991 and ROI AGIOI93, and represents a totally collaborative effort. Portions of this research were presented at the 65th annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association. We thank

More is not always better: paradoxical effects of repetition on semantic accessibility

“…Critically, member decisions were actually slower following 30 repetitions of the category than after only 3 (see also Balota &Black, 1997, andSmith &Klein, 1990). Using similar methods, satiation effects have been observed with faces as the repeated stimuli (Lewis & Ellis, 2000), suggesting that this phenomenon may be a general consequence of massive repetition, at least for measures of accessibility taken immediately after repetition.…”

“…Because satiation paradigms have not typically included a nonexposed baseline (cf. Balota & Black, 1997), it has been unclear whether prolonged repetition truly slows semantic processing time for the repeated word relative to an unprimed state. In the present study, we found that increasing repetition duration from 5 to 40 s was associated with a negative influence on semantic accessibility-but it is clear that this downward trend reflected a reduction in performance relative to a primed state and not reductions relative to preexperimental levels.…”

A matter of design: Priming context and person perception

“…Through satiation or habituation, it has been reported that excessive exposure to a stimulus can impede subsequent processing of that item (e.g., Balota & Black, 1997;Smith, 1984;Smith & Klein, 1990). Such an effect has obvious functional utility as it biases the attentional system to process new information by filtering out repetitive (i.e., redundant) material (Balota & Black, 1997). A mechanism of this kind may contribute to the effects reported in the current investigation (see also Kunda et al, 2002), albeit with some modifications.…”

Mind wandering minimizes mind numbing: Reducing semantic-satiation effects through absorptive lapses of attention

“…Semantic priming is an automatic process in which the perception of a word initiates the activation of a network of semantically related lexical associates (e.g., Balota & Black, 1997). This effect is typically measured through speeded reaction times (RTs) to words semantically related to a previously presented target word.…”

“…If you are like most people, you will soon notice an astonishing phenomenon: The word quickly loses all meaning. The continuous encountering of a word can produce a remarkably mind-numbing effect, referred to as Bsemantic satiation^ (Balota & Black, 1997;Smith & Klein, 1990). Such a dramatic effect of repetition, and mental habituation toward a stimulus, leads to an important question: Have our brains evolved any processes to counteract the mind numbing that can accompany repetition?…”