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LA THESE A ETE MICR&FILMEE TELLE QUE,,
NOUS L'AVONS .RECUE
NL-339 (r. 82/J38)
n
Evidence for Semantic Satiation
> Lee C Smith
Department of Psychology
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of^the requirements for the
Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
at
' Dalhouslie JJniversity.
, Decem^r* 17, 1984
T-able of Contents • ^
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Appendix B
p
\ P P ^ X iC ^* G o ^ o o o e a e o o d o o J o o o o & d o o o ® o o q Q o 1 U
M . S X S S - S i i C S S ^ ' o Q o o o e a o o e Q O O Q O o o o j a o o o ' a o o o o . o O U
o j s o « o 6 o o o 0 0 O O O O O O G ' O O O O
L, 5' - , y «, ,
. s ^ *
V
* "Abstract
When people repe,at. and look at a word for an extended period of #ime i£ is of ten.'reported that the word somehow "loses i<ts meaning"o The,.subjective experience of^loss of meaning t referred to a$ semantic satiation,, suggests /that decisions ' based, on knowledge of te*re~ x-jord's meaning might b°e a'ffectedo) Evidence that prolonged' repetition of a word impedes the retrieval from memory of semantic information
.^pertaining to that concept was obtained^ from experiments "in which subjects first repeated the name' of a category either 3 „or, 30 "times„ • and subsequently made speeded instance
' judgments ab^yj^* exemplars of the- same or a different _categoryo Experiments 1, 2„ and 5 showed that category ' judgment latencies to exemplars of the repeated category increased with number of .repetitions of the criterion category name0 Experiment 4 showed that category judgment latencies to two. exemplar targets from the rep°eated category
• were "similarly . affected by the repetition treatment ' Experiment 5 also demonstrated that prolonged repetition of 1 a category narap retards unintentional semantic processing of a task-irrelevant exemplar, of the repeated category,, as evidenced by the reduced effect the irrelevant word .had" on category judgment latencies to an attended target' exemplar„% In Experiment 3„ however, no effect of the repetition'" treatment was observed on the magnitude of semantic priming when subjects , were required to make lexical (word-nonwordj decisions to target exemplars„
An ad hoc account of these data as'suiiies that prolonged repetition of a word affect's the links or " pathways connecting concepts in semantic memory„ The net effect is to decrease the rate of search and associative spread of activation in conceptual structures0
4 •< I
&9&
" s ~n ^ 1 .
' . Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the • members ot my thesis-
.committee? Drs." John Barresij, Vin ioloxdoj'Jim Neely„-(and
Ray Kleino My sincere gratitude .to Jojin follows from
several years enjoyment of his intelligent observation's on
psychological issues and - the stuff of ' science„ * I ' was
onoured that Jim leely could serve as ift .external exaifiinejr „
Tb Ray„ I can only fall short of expressing.the extent and
depth of my gratitude„• Ray. hat pr©vic]sd me almost JPiiaitless
encouragement, enthusiasm, intelligence, patience ?ia and
sppport. * c '
*«1 * - , . „ - - ' -" o *
SEMANTIC 'SAT ATIOM, " •- *, '; ' '/'Page 1
* " ' * ' V ' *
' ' ', ° •' Evidence' for Semantic Satiatidh '
• ' , ' . ' ' ' ' - ..'
t . "• • a< *•• ' " * - . «-•
The'term*"semantic satiation0 refers to the subjective c' ;
experience of loss of" meaning ofa a word" as a r„esult of • » , < • , *• s " • - . ' •
prolonged inspection and repe'tartlorv of tne worth' The reader *.
, may 'quickly experience thiss' "Repeat aloud some word - tone*
firste that occurs to y.q,u? house, for instance - over and
over againi presently ' .the sound of the .word *> become's
.meaningless and tjlank?. »you .are pussled and a, morsel
.frightened • as you hear it" (Titchener, •1915, pp021>-27)»' * '" °
Observers in Titchener's laboratory d(Bassett »and Wariae,
1919; ' Dap anQ .Weld, 1924? Severance and Washburn, 1907)'. ' ' " , • . • » . - * * > »
noted a variety of events including -visual and 'verbal-motor
(phonetic) -transformations-,- lops of f ami liarrty.-wifch the
. wqrd, and' lapse .of meaning (sise also- Wertheimer and Gillies, ' ' . ' ' -' . . V ' '• • . - . > . ,
1958).. . " , '
"Subsequent •• stu'dies stimulated by , such introspect ive"
^acdounts . in i t ia l ly ,^ accepted "the idgsj t ha t loss of. msariing • =<
' occurs" following r e p e t i t i o n of a word, and' employed- t h e . & a
a t « ' v
^"technique as*, a 'manipulation to examine "the correlation of - ' '" "° ° K
' aut6nbmic„rresponse§ with mental states- (Mason, 1941}^ the • ' ' I * i o .
ft " . . • •> o
„' relation between personality types "and conceptual processes .'
• J ,
"(Smith a#id"Raygor, 1956)', and the func t iona l ' co r re l a t e s of
' , .-pnomatopo'eia (Wertheimer, ,1958).
Beginning with the s%tudy by 'Lambert and Jakobovits
. - • ' . - ' ' . v " /• ' ••*v
/SEMANTIC SATIATION " * . • . j^|9e 2
1(1960), a body of research accumulated which at first.'
op.ti'mis tic ally sought to estimate the^extent of semantic
" -satiation "(reviewed in Amste-r, 1964), but"^subsequently
, faltered' as methodological problems and^hallenging evidence
'Cast doub.t ©n? whether semantic- satiation 'ever0 truly
• occurredo By the time of ' Esposito and Eelton's (1971) •= _ , \ " ' / - '» ' •
'critical examination. ,of tfre. semantic satiation literature, * . '
the methods for measuring the effect of repetition comprised .
pre-v and post-repetition ratings^ on> some of Osgood's (Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum, 1957) semantic differential
scales '{e.g.-? Lamberts and "Jakobayits, ' 196-0 ? Messer,
Jakobovits, Kanungo, and Lambert, 1964), the commonality and
o "number of associates generated in response to ' the satiated
wo-rd (e.g., Barasj 1968?" Cramer, 1968? ^anungo and Lambert,.
1963), pdired-associate learning '(e0g0, -Kanungo, Lambert, ' •• . '$ \ °
and Mailer, 1962? Pyke, Agnevf, and Adams, 1966), and synonym
judgment and associate retrieval time {EiljLenb,aum,, 1964?
Gough and Rohrman, 1965? Gorfein,' 1967). Esposito and*
? Pelton Showed that this literature^ provides o inconsistent
support _ for 'the semantic satiation (loss of meaning)
hypothesis, and results'- which are' .open to alternative
explanations• Although 'they indicated "which 'experiments t a
were needed to resolve some of- the ambiguity present even in
encouraging reports," '.the fundamental impact ,of their
critique seems instead to have been, to .discourage further
'SEMANTIC SATIATION . v / ' Page 3
/"
<V
work on the problem. ^ - • » \ ' '
« In the same year, Jihat Esposito0 and Pelton's1 (1971) <
review 'was published,' Beyer and Schvaneveldt'S (1971)
seminal papthr appeared which., along with 1 the papers"'by
- • ' ° I ' Collins and Quillian (1969, 1970), broke lnew* ground for the study of- semantip memory0 In this vne 7 context of paradigms
and models of semantic information processing, Neely .(1977a)
reported . an experiment which applied the semantic priming '
procedure to'the s"emantip -.satiation phenomenon Semantic • * - fa , ' '* '
priming is . thev observation that lexical -(word-nonword)
"decisions are faster when a target word "is preceded by a
\semantically-related prime word, as compared, to a .neutral or*
semantical ly.-urirela ted stimulus (e.g., Neely, 1976 f 1977b)» a,. *
The-3 mechanism, of semantic priming was thought to involve a
spread of activation from- the .representation .of the prime-* .
word to- semantically-associated structures in memory13 (e0g0 ,
Collins and Loftus, 1975), By this -account, spreading .
activation effectively facilitates encoding and recognition J
of semantically-reiated words, as evidenced aby faster
decision latencies* Weely (1977a) argued that evidence -
suppcrtin, -th. ~ i c satiation ^ W - in' t„e a
priming-lexical decision task would come 'from ,'a , » .
- demonstration that the magnitude of the' priming -gffect was 0 *
reduced wjaen the prime ' word was repeated for an extended
\^J ' ° * . period. His argument assumes that semantic satiation would
SEMANTIC SATIATIOM . 0 . . - , ' , Page 4"' C
reduce or eliminate activation- of the 'prime* word, and
proportionately •" limit activation^ a spreading „ to . ' • * • • • *
semantically-associated concepts.
Weely^s (1977a) experiment obtained' no^ evidence to
. s-uppprt t h i s <prediction0 • However, Kee-ly0 usaad an 11-secbnd r epe t i t i on per iod , which may\ be too short for suf f ic ien t
s a t i a t i o n to deve lop^ Gg&ene,' Smith, . and Klein (1978) ^ *
tested the semantic'satiation hypothesis by- having subjects * „• * " ) • •
first pronounce a' prime word either once or repeatedly for
30 seconds, and then make a* lexical decision about a target * ft *
letter-string„ In their Experiments . 1 and 3 the* target
> iffords vje're either associatively related or unrelated to the
prime >word, and m their Experiment 2 the target words were
' either 'identical to" 'or unassociated,Vith?>the prime word»
Although the response ,time (RT) to related '(or/ identical)
words was faster than, -to unrelated wop3s/ as would.be
expected with their' priming procedure, these 'experiments
'.also 'obtained no evidence of ata effect of number of
repetitions' on priming -magnitude. Cohene et al 'concluded
that the' subjective experience- of. semantic satiation is "not
truly „relatea to the loss of meaning"of a word" (p.139? and
see Esposito and PeAon, 1971, p«>344, 'for a similar
conclusion)„ " . •
-An .alternative interpretation of these resuSts*is that
priming with the lexical decision task is not sensitive to
A
f ° s . * * • . • • . -M - ft t- * O ' J .AT.
a
SEMANTIC SATIATION ' ' - *' -',**, *' „ ° ^ $ V P a g e > 5 " •S
. s ejitantic satiation.' First, a "lexical -"decision- involves „•
'deciding whether ^or "hot a .target item has a corresponding5*^ A
entry i'n #he "subjective lexicon -(Miller-, 1978)«, which"* • may ~
not' require retrieval oof houga information concerning the
rae'anrng of -the target word <o to be sensitive to ,-^emantic
. satiation r(cf. Balota and Chumbley, 1984). Second, the ;
possibility that- lexical priming is mediated by mechanisms ' „ " i " '. " T-
or structures .that are " different -from' those that ,-are « ' *• • A'iUtfi. °
(i affected by., the satiation0 treatment^ cannot* be »completely
ruled out", on . the. basis ^of existing data. --Eodor (1982, .
pp.73-75)' has, recently argued, "for instance, ' that lexical
priming is mediated by almost contentleW S-R links. These _ ^ f \ •
arguments - indicate that a clearer "tesk ' for " semantic
satiation would entail ar decision .that requires"retrieval of -««
semantic information about the repeated 'word. One such task'
would" require- subjects to make category i^sjyijMK judgments
-on target exemplars, alrter a period of repeating the namet, pf 0
' a category. ' • . ., u „° . . .
s *>
SEMANTIC SATIATION . ^ • ° .Page 6 •c; '
Experiment 1, . , _ ' : . . ' v •=•
Experiment 1 required subjects to pronounc€ the name' of <&.
a- category (e.g., FRUIT) either 3 or 30 times, and then to
'decide whether or not a target word (e.g., APPLE, ROBIN) is $* * ', ** &
an instance o'f .the repeated category. The category & . ° . » . • « "* .
membership decision requires' .the retrieval of some of the
semantic properties of botn the category name and target"
word. If*prolonged repetition, of a *category name does
reduce the availability of semantic inf E fma'tiion pertaining . • , ft
to the* word, then responses to 'member8 targets .should be-
. "slower .following 30'repetitions relative to 3 repetitions.
Although a variety of- "outcomes Jcould -,be ' imagined for » « »
'nonmember' targets-, the mos't straightforward prediction, is , "• ~? ' •, '"•/*'' ' " > that there should be no effect of number of repetitions.
1 . - • • ' • * •*> _ - ' This prediction* is foase<| oh the two (illustrative)
assumptions that the retrieval"of the name of the category
of ar nonmember exemplar is' not impaired by repetition of
"some othdr category name, and that a nonmember decision can
be lads, without- reference to any semantic information about
the-repea'ted category (but is instead based on discrepant graphemic, phonological, or episodic information).
Methods t . . . '
Subjects. Sixteen introductory psychology students
*°\
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 7
•participated in the experiment for course c r ed i t . ,. All a if
subjects were native English speakers. • • *
r ' ~ . '
Stimuli and Apparatus. The priming words were .40
category names and the targets were one dominant exemplar
from each of the 40 categories. Two lists of 40
category-exemplar pairs were constructed, and are liste'd ' in
Appendix A. Each list contained 20 exemplars paired with
their derivative category name (MEMBER condition) \and 20
pairs where the exemplar was paired with some other category
name (NONMEMBER condition). A target served" as a MEMBER in
'one list and as a NONMEMBER in the ot e.r list. A similar,
list^of 16 pairs derive'd from a different set of categories
and exemplars served for practice. *< >
The words were shown on a Tektronix 604 oscilloscope,
controlled by a PDP 11/03 computer located in an adjoining
room. The words were > plotted in capital letters, and
subtended, on average., . about o6<8 x 1.06 degrees of visual
angle at the viewing distance- of abOut 29 cm. Subjects
signaled their response with one of two response switches
mounted in plexiglass and resting on the table. An intercom
allowed 'the experimenter to monitor the subject's
repetitions in an adjoining room.
/ **•»
Procedureo ' The subjects were ^ea£ed individually in
« > { • . .
1 q » . /
. SEMANTIC SATIATION , < . Page 8
LI * ">
single sessions lasting about 35 minutes. "Each subject
.completed 16 practice and 40 experimental trials. Half'of
the subjects were tested with one list, ,and' half with the
other list. The experimental series, comprised ten trials in
each of the'four conditions" derived from the combination '> of
type of relation (MEMBER, NONMEMBER) with number of t^" •< • •* *
" repetitions (3,„30). The assignment of trials to number of / ' ' '/ -
„ repetitions was ''counterbalanced across subjects. Each "
f * subject received a'unique random ordering.',o£ the trials. %
A tria\began with the appearance of a fixation point in
o the.center of the screen. One second later a category name
appeared in two locations, about 1 degree above and below
-'the fixation point. The category name was displayed either.
3 , or 30 times for 500 msec with a 200 msec interval between •
exposures. Subjects v/ere ^instructed to .prdnpunce the a> - - , . <
category name 'clearly, to. begin; articulation .of the word
coincident $i£h ' its appearance on the scree-n, and to
continue • watching the word throughout. Subjects were told i a
that the experimenter would be monitoring their "repetitions
via the intercom. . ,
After the final repetition the fixation point was
brightened for 1 second to serve as a warning signal. The
target word was then written on the screen, centered at the
fixation po-int, until the subject responded. Subjects
received no feedback. The intertrial interval was 5 0
. \
SEMANTIC SATIATION • ^ Page 9
seconds"/ Half "of the subjects signaled MEMBER with" their
left index, finger and NONMEMBER with their right index
dinger, and the other half had the reverse mapping.
. r "
' o
if
R e S B l t S , , , . , ' /
b ' The median response ^ times for the correct category
membership decisions and the percent error data for the
experimental trials were subjected to separate analyses - of
variance including the factors list, response-hand
assignment, type of decision, an<j" number of repetitions".
phe mean of the subjects' me'dian response times and mean
peir|gnt errors are given in the top half of Table 1. There
were no 'effects involving eithe r list i>r response-hand
assignment (all'F's <1.4). The MEMBER decisions were 110
mseq, faster than the NONMEMBER decisions
[F(l,15)=44.16,p<o05]''o There was no reliable difference n ' a
between decision times ' as a function of the number of
repetitions [F(l,15)<.2]„ The significant interaction of decision-type with number of repetitions [F(1,15)=6.04,
t
p<.05] suggests that MEMBER decisions were slower following
30 repetitions and NONMEMBER decisions 'were faster following
30 .repetitions. Two-tailed t-tests showed that neither of
these differences was reliable [t(15)=1.57, p>.05 for the
MEMBER ' condition? t(15)=l„79, p>.05 for the NONMEMBER
condition]„ A similar analysis of variance of the percent
^ SEMANTIC SATIATION . " Page 10
tr error data showed no main effect of type of deoision
4 ' "
O
[F(l,15)=2.01]„ The . interaction "of type of decision with
number of repetitions did not approach significance
[F(l",15)=1.77] .
Discussion ' ' v
The results of this experiment are marginally consistent < >
with the idea that semantic satiation of information about a t . > \ •
category occurs following "repeated pronunciation of the
category name. The trend for subjects to take more time to ' 4 a
correctly decide that an ^exemplar was a member of the
criterion category following 30 repetitions is predicted by
the semantic satiation hypothesis. Unexpectedly, there was
also a' trend > for RT to be faster following 30 repetitions
when the subjects correctly decided'that a target was not a
member of the repeated category. These trends account for
the obtained interaction of decision-type with number of
repetitions. However, neither of these isolated effects was
shown to be reliable.. Therefore, since no decisive
statement regarding the semantic satiation hypothesis can be
extracted from these data, the category membership
experiment was repeated with twice the number of subjects in<
an attempt to unequivocally confirm or refute the
impressions derived from the first experiment. In the
replication, subjects were given RT^feedback following ,*each
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 11
of their responses to encourage faster responding, and to
thereby shift their performance away from the asymptote on
the "speed-accuracy trade-off function (see Pachella, 1974).
Also, the category name* was presented in only one location
on the screen. It was .felt tha>t neither *0f these changes J7 , - . ' * * »
would influence the-phenomenon of interest.'
v
SEMANTIC
11
Methods
0 "
SATIATION
* v i>
Page 12 s
Experiment 2
Subjects. Thirty-two paid subjects were recruited from - . » • < . .
*the Dalhousie University subject pool. All subjects were
native. English speaker^ and none had ".participated- in
.Experiment 1. , * * / ' " • „ * <•
. f Procedure. All aspects of the experiment w'ere identical
to those of Experiment 1 with the exceptions that subjects
received RT ^feedback following each" trial, and that the " a *
category name was presented only above the,, fixation point
(a's opposed to above and/below fixation). ' •• .'
Results , V o . •
The bottom half of Table 1 shows 'the mean of the
subjects'* median RTs and mean percent,errors. There were no
effects involving either list or response-rhand- assignment
(all F's^ <1..0). MEMBER decisions were 53 msec faster than
NONMEMBER decisions [F(l,31)=6.71, p<J05]. For ' MEMBER
decisions sjabj&c'ts were' reliably slower" following 30 as
compared to 3 repetitions [t(31)=2.55, p<.05]. There was no
effect of repetition for NONMEMBER decisions [t(31)=„54].
Similar tests on the percent errors showed that there was no
effect of number of repetitions for either the MEMBER
[t(31)=0.Q] or NONMEMBER [t(31)=1.27] conditions.
SEMANTIC SATIATION ' 9 Page 13
Although the trend 'for accuracy in <tlie NONMEMBER
condition to improve with fu repetitions was not
statistically reliable,_ it might nonetheless be argued that
the RT data are potentially open to a response-?bi°as
•interpretation; subjects are slower to make MEMBER decisions
following 30 repetitions because they developed, a bias to
respond NONMEMBER,- In its purest form, the response-bias
acrdspunt requires a reciprocal relation between speed and,
accuracy. However^ the data show n6 change in accuracy for
MEMBER decisions, and no^, decrease in RT with number of
repetitions for the NONMEMBER condition. "Thus, the overall
.pattern of RT and accuracy in this experiment is not in
complete agreement with the.response-bias account. A more
convincing repudiation of the response-bias hypothesis was
obtained by examining,the data of subjects grouped on the
basis of their accuracy patterns. When we examined the data
from only those* subje.cts (N=6) who- showed an increase in
err.ors in the • NONMEMBER condition between 3 and 30
repetitions (the opposite of'the,response-bias prediction),
%H increased by 117 msec with number of repetitions in the
MEMBER condition,, For subjects v;ith fewer errors in the 30
relative to 3 repetition-NONMEMBER condition (N=10), MEMBER
RT increased by 65 msec, and for the subjects that showed no
change „in NONMEMBEjfcrror rate (N=16), MEMBER RT increased
by 60 msec with number of repetitions. Thus, there is no
/ ^ - ." . SEMANTIC SATIATION - " "' ' /* .•'"•/ " Page 14_
evidence to supp'ort a response-bi'as -interpretation of ttfe RT
data. . » .» , o .
1 o , < " ' . ! . » • ft o *
. ' , •>„ <3
Discussion . / ) »- / ~ <,
The semantic satia.t^on hypothesis • maintains that
activation > of semantic information about a word is'retarded
following extended repetition of the word. The experimental
literature reviev/ed in'.Esposito and Pelton,, (1971) deployed a'
range <of tasks to test <this hypothesis, but the /findings
were generally mixed or-were difficult to interpret. Neely t - v
(1977a) -tested"the semantic satiation hypothesis with the semantic priming-lexical' decision task and failed to find I • I , o 4 «
supportive evidence. , Cohene et al« (1978) had subjects
repeat' a prime word .once dr^for 30 seconds and measured
lexical decision latencies. No differential priming . effect
was obtained for associated and unassociated or identical
and unassociated word, targe'ts as. a function of repetition
period. v . '
' The present experiments"were based on the" premise tha°t
the priming-lexical decision paradigm may be insensitive to
the effect of satiation, give'n the possibilities that' the
information that ,is satiated does not mediate p"riming and/or
is not germane to the ' lexical decision process. To.
circumvent this criticis% subjects pronounced the name of a
category either 3 or 30 times, and then performed' a speeded
SEMANTIC SATIATION *„ ' Page 15
category membership decision with words that either were or
were not exemplars of the repeated category.\ Experiment 1 «, «* .' °% * i ' /^~7~ ' X -
obtained weak evidence " to suggest „ that" MEMBE-R .decisions
(e.g., prime-WEAPON,\^target-GUN) were slower following 30
repetitions, a finding that "is consistent wi'th the semantic
= satiatipn ° hypothesis. Als.o,,( ^data from Experiment 1
suggested that NONMEMBER decisions (e.g. ,' WEAPON-JAZZ)* mights,
. be facilitated -following 30 repetitions. The replication ' . » c ° ' . > . . .
o
experiment confirmed only that MEMBER decisions a<re slower
following the satiation treatment. No evidence of an effect
of number of- repetitions i,jas obtained for • NONMEMBER ; v • -decisions.
The results from the caj/egory membership experiments atfe
clearly supportive 'of ' the semantic satiation hypothesis^
Furthermore, the absence of an effect of number of
repetitions with the priming-lexical decision" task (Cohene
et al,. 1978) considered in conjunction with' .the _ category
membership data may provide an important clue" concerning the
locus of the repetition effect on semantic decisions". Note",
however, that it seems possible that procedural and/or •a N
stimulus material differences between the Cohene et al• .and
the present experiments might instead explain the difference
between tasks in the effects ofj number^ of repetitions.0 „To determine whether incidental differences between the two
ii
tasks were responsible, the next experiment was conducted
SEMANTIC SATIATION . . ,., -' Page- 16'
« * •
using the priming-lexical, decision, task, and' the same
materials and procedure as in Experiment f insofar as the
task change would allow.
"
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 17
Experiment 3
V Methods •
Subjects. Thirty-two introductory .psychology students
participated in the experiment for course credit. None had
participated in the previous experiments. All subjects were
native English speakers. . . . . .
s
Stimuli. The same materials—were -used as /before. In
addition, 40 pronounceable, orthographically-legal nonwords
were generated by changing a single- letter in each of the 40
target words. Four stimulus lists of' 40 pairs each were
constructed such that each list contained 10 semantically
related (formerly . MEMBER) pairs, 10 semantically unrelated
(formerly NONMEMBER) pairs, and 20 category 'name^nonword
pairs.. Each category name appeared once i-n each list, and '• — ' * 'It across lists was paired once with an exemplar, once with an
0
unrelated "word, and with two nonwords that were not derived
from an exemplar of that category. A similar list of 16 new
pairs nas developed and used for practice.
Procedure^ The experiment followed essentially^ the same
procedure as in Experiment 2°. Subjects were instructed to
make word-snonword decisions on the target item which was
presented following 3 or 30 repetitions of a category name,
SEMANTIC ^SATIATION - ." Page , 18
. 0 > ".
P
and "both response speed and accuracy were emphasized.
'Subjects were also told about the possible relations between ie category names and target words. Following practice", a
tt uibject received'the 40 experimental trials from,, one of, the ^ , « ' . ' ^
four^iistSo t The experimental series consisted of- five
trials in each of the four conditions derived from the
combination of type of relation (Related, Unrelated) with,
number ,'of repetitions of the category name 4(3, 30), and 10
.nonword trials in each repetition condition. Eight subject's
were tested with each one of the four Iftsts. The assignment-
of items to conditions was counterbalanced across subjects. ' A " " ° -*
Half of the subjects0signaled 'word' with their left index,
finger and 'nonwbrcT with their right index fingert and the
other/half had the reverse mapping.
Results
The mean of the subject's median RTs and mean percent
errors are given in Table 2.. There "were no effects
involving either response-hand assignment or list. The RT
* to related targets .was 70 msec faster than to unrelated" IE?
targets [F(l,31)=22.4, p<.05] , evidencing the typical"
iming effect. There was no difference in RT as a function
of number of- repetitions^ for either the- related' or unrelated
conditions (both t-values <,39), nor was any difference
found in the analyses of the percent errors " (both t-values
t,
/
SEMANTIC SATJATION ^ ^ , << > ^ a 9 e 1 9
i £»
<.83'). Similarly, the analyses of the nonword RTs^ and i f . " ®
percent errors showed -.no' reliable differences between
repetition, conditions [t(31f=1.03 • and .87, respectively].
Discussion '' * . » ' , " '
^ The results from 'the experiments "have demonstrated that
' / prolonged fixation and repetition of, a category . name (1)
increases • category membership decision time for"exemplars,
(2).does not affect category decision time lor nonexemplars,
and (3H does not attenuate priming in .the lexical decision
task (replicating the.findings of Cohene' et al, ° 1978? see
also Neely, 1977a). 'These data are compatible with the idea
that sustained inspection a<ad, pronunciation of a category t P
n - •
name reduces the Accessibility from" memory of semantic
information pertaining to that categoVy.
. , .The _ tempting convergence of the category membership
decision data with the subjective experience of" • loss of
meaning that can .accompany repetition might encourage one to
search for a psychological process model that could account
for these few empirical observations. A crucial constraint i ti
i
on any proposed model, ' and one of the more interesting
/ aspects of 'the, present data, is the differential effect of
number of repetitions-^ in0 the , category °" membership and
« priming-lexical -decision tasks^^^1 though the ' earlier
explanation of -0the insensitivity -of the priming-lexical
A SEMANTIC SATIATION " ' - Page 20'
ft - • " ' ?
decision paradigm to the effects of satiation (see pg. 6)
might /be correct, an additional and.important difference
between the "two tas-k situations exists. The-'difference has
to do with the relevance of the repeated .category name to
the ° decision the subject must * subsequently make. <* The
category .membership task explicitly required that subjects
_ heed the category, whereas a lexical^decision * is indifferent
to the 'category, as well as to the meaning of the target.
s "" Many subjects indeed pointed out during the instructions in
the- lexical decision experiment that the .repetition word had
nothing to do with-the decision required in response to the
target .stimulus. Exactly what the difference in relevance
of the category name between''the two tasks »might mean in
.terms of the observed effects of repeti/tipn on decision
latencies is not certain". .One possibility i/s -that when „ the
category name is irrelevant to the decision at hand, as in *• >
the lexical decision task, subjects may opt not to attend to
the meaning of the word they are repeating, and maintain the
process effyrepeating the word « by means of an automatic
articulation loop (Baddeley, 1978). On the other hand., when
the c pegjaey name is relevant to the decision, as in the
category membership task, subjects might attend to the
meaning of the category, consider possible exemplars that
may be' presented (Blaxton and Neely, 1983), and theteby
promote semantic satiation, "Generally stated, the concern
&7
SEMANTIC SATIATION * Page 21
is that subjects may have engaged different repetition
strategies / in the too tasks such that semantic satiation of
<• the categoryxpccurred pending the stimulus for a * category
membership decision, but not for a lexical decision.. Notice
that this account does nothing to impugn the basic effect of
number of repetitions on category membership -decision
* - J latencies, but ' instead raises the possibility that the
\abse$j$e of .an effect on the magnitude of priming in the /
lexical •decision task may be ' attributable to lack of
satiation, rather than to insensitivitiy of the task to
semantic satiation. The value in evaluating the repetition
strategy hypbthesis lies, of course, in deciding whether to
' retain or reject one of the principle converging operations
•(i.e., the difference between the too tasks in the effect of
number of repetitions on decision latencies) on the . effect
of number of repetitions on semantic decisions.
One' way to address this question is to turn the
statement of the problem around and ask whether the effect
of repetition on semantic decisions v/ould be eliminated if
the repeated category name was rendered irrelevant to the
decision. This was done in the next exjpriment with ' a
category matching task in which subjects first repeated the
name of a category, were then shown two words, and decided
whether both words were from the same category or from o
different categories. Whether the exemplars are from the
SEMANTIC SATIATION . £> I Page 22
" ; ' '" " A :' repeated category was not relevant to fehe task. » To
i - ° * V .
i£-3oistrate| -subjects might repeat • the category name FRUIT,
and subsequently be shown either the two exemplars
APPLE-PLUM, or ROBIN-HAWK. Both pairs require a MATCH
deoision. A NO MATCH decision vrould 'be required -for the
pairs ANT-TRUCK and PEACH-SHIRT. The latter condition,
comprising pairs of words in which one word is a member of t>
r v
the Repeated category and the other is not, was included to
eliminate the strategy of^making a positive decision if just
one of the target words was a 'member of the repeated
category. An additional condition was included as a
"precautionary step to avoid the possibility that subjects'
would make their decisions on the basis «of any' semantic
similarity between the target, words, rather than on the
desired basis of coordinate relation. Put in other words,
given the four conditions outlined so far, detecting any
kind pf relation or correspondence between the target words
, would be sufficient to reach an accurate MATCH decision, and
in the absence of any detectable relation between the target
words a correct NO MATCH, decision would be indidated. It
could not be asserted with certainty that subjects we're
indeed performing a category matching decision, instead of a
decision based on some other., perhaps more,, elementary,
semantic analysis (as in Smith, Shoeben', and Rips, 1974).,. a
Accordingly, the fifth condition consisted of pairs^ of»
SEMANTIC SATIATION' , '~LT Page 23
t'arget words taken from different categories, which
nonetheless formed a clear noncategorical relation? pairs
such as TABLE-TENNIS, CAR-OIL, COW-MILK, and YELLOW-TULIP.
Both to refute the repetition strategy hypothesis and to
bolster th@^ evidence for semantic satiation, category
matching decisions to pairs*of. exemplars from the repeated
category must be slower, following 30 as compared to 3
.repetitions. No effect of repetition should obtain in the
other conditions with the possible exception of the
condition where "one of the1 'target, words is an exemplar of a
the repeated category 11]„
r. r°
4
SEMANTIC SATIATION « - ' Page 24 -1
Experiment 4 \
Methods
* i Subjects. Forty-five paid subjects were recruited from
the Dalhousie University summer subject pool.. All.subjects
were native English speakers and none had participated in
any.of the previous experiments. -
Stimuli. Fo'rty category names and two dominant
exemplars from each of the categories tcomprised, the stimuli.
The stimuli'for a trial consisted of a category name and two
target exemplars. In the' list of 80 trials that was !) If
developed, each category name and exemplar was used twice.
Five conditions were generated according to the pairing of
exemplar target words and the assignment of .the pairs to
category names. The MEMBER-MATCH condition comprised 20
trials in which both targets were members of' the repeated
category name. The NONMEMBER-MATCH condition comprised 20
trials in which both targets were from the same ) category,
but were not members of "the category repeated on that trial.
The ONE MEMBER-NO MATCH condition comprised 14 trials
consisting of pairs of exemplars .from different categories",
with just one of the exemplars being a member of the
repe'ated .category. Half of the exemplars from the repeated
category appeared as the upper word and half as the lower
SEMANTIC SATIATION, Page 25
word, and this was also equated in the too 'repetition
conditions (see below). Fourteen trials where neither of
the exemplars was from the repeated category name, and were
not otherwise related, made up the NO MEMBER-NO MATCH
condition. Finally, 12 pairs of exemplars, both "from
different categories and neither from the repeated
category,, but • which were associatively related (e.g., 1>
TABLE--TENNIS), comprised the ASSOCIATED-NO MATCH condition.
There/was therefore a total of 40 MATCH and 40 NO, MATCH
trials, with each category name and each exemplar occurring
once for' each type of decision. The list is given in
Appendix B, For half of the subjects, half of the trials in
each of the five conditions were assigned 3 repetitions of
the category name, and the other half 30 repetitions. The
other half of the subjects had the opposite assignment of
trials to number of repetitions, so that each trial served
' as its own control as concerns the repetition treatment
Twelve practice trials, using different categories and
exemplars, were provided to illustrate^the task requirements
and to familiarize the subject with the displays.' > * *
Procedure.' Each subject was tested in a single session
lasting about 40 minutes. Subjects were instructed in the
repetition procedure as before, arid were told about .the type
of decision required .of , the target words, with the
appropriate decision illustrated by examples (not used in
SEMANTIC SATIATldk " Page 26
practice or the actual testing)- of eactu of the five
conditions. It- was emphasised that they should be careful
to make category matching decisions and not to be lured to a
.MATCH decision by a noncategorical associati6n between the
target words (i.e., ASSOCIATED-NO MATCH trials). Each"
subject then completed the 12 practice and 80 experimental
trials.
The* sequence and timing of events 'on a trial followed"
that used in the last two experiments. The target words
were displayed above and below the, location of the fixation
point, separated -.by about 1 degree. Half of' the subjects"
signaled MATCH' with their left index finger and NO MATCH
with their right index/finger/^and the other half had the
1 reverse mapping.
0
^Results and Discussion • (
The data from 13 of the subjects were not considered
because they responded incorrectly on 50% or more of- trials
following either 3 or 30 repetitions in one or more specific
conditions (N=8, ASSOCIATED-NO MATCH condition?/ N=5,^
NONMEMBER-MATCH condition). It seems plausibjjs that the
discarded subjects in the former group were inclined to base
their decisions more in-terms of semantic similarity than
category membership, while the latter subjects possibly
. thought that they should respond MATCH when the otwo
SEMANTIC SATIATION . Page' 27
exemplars were from the repeated category, and NO MATCH
otherwise. 9 '
Table 3 presents the mean of the subjects'1 median RTs
and mean percent errors for thye 10 experimental conditions.
An overall analysis of variance of the RT data revealed ho
main effect for the' assignment of trial items to repetition,
condition [F(l?30)=1.30] or interaction of this factor with
target >cond tion [F(4,120)=»19J, repetitions [F(l,30)=1.59],
or both [F(4,iL20) = .49] . -There were no effects involving -w
response-hariH assignment. The effect of target-condition *
[F(4,120>=^5.98] and its interaction with repetitions
[F(4,120)=3.11] were significant.
The comparisons of interest involve the effect of
repetition in each target condition. Two-tailed t-tests
indicated a significant effect of repetition on RT in the -. ==>
MEMBER-MATCH" [t(31)=2.74] and NO MEMBER-NO MATCH
[t(31)=2015] conditions. None'of the other comparisons were
significant; NONMEMBER-MATCH [t(31)=1.09-] ; ONE" MEMBER-NO
MATCH [t(31)=0.0] ? ASSOCIATED-NO MATCH [t(31)=1.43] „
A similar series of analyses on the percent errors•
revealed only a main effect of target condition
[F(4,,120)=29.'26] . None ofo .the other main effects,
interactions, or comparisons within target conditions
approached significance.
The main prediction derived from the semantic satiation
\
SEMANTICvSATIATION ' ' • Page 28
hypothesis for this experiment was supported? Decision times
on MATCH trials * increased with repetitions • when both
exemplar's were from the repeated category (MEMBER=MATCH) ,
but was not significantly affected when the targets were
both exemplars of some- other -category (NONMEMBER-MATCH-) .
Since in this task, as in the lexical decision task,, the
repeated category name was irrelevant, -.the repetition
strategy hypothesis' was not supported. Although RT was
faster in £he MEMBER-MATCH condition as compared _ to the
NONMEMBER-MATCH condition, this difference might reasonably
be viewed as a priming effect not entirely unlike that
observed in the lexical decision task (Experiment 3>„ An
national, but not critical • (see footnote 1) prediction was
that RT in the ONE MEMBER-NO MATCH condition would increase
with repetitions, but this effect was clearly not present.
To determine whether the relative position (above or below)
of the target exemplar that was from the repeated category
might have modulated any repetition effect in this
condition, median RTs were accordingly derived for each
subject (the data from two subjects could not be retrieved,
so N=30). Display positiondid not modulate the repetition
effect in RT [F(3,87)=.ll]. _ However, there was a
signifleant* effect -in percent errors [F(3,87)=3.32,
MSE=119.0? above position 8.82, 3.63,° below 0.0S," 4.22 for 3
and 30 repetitions, respectively]. Post hoc contrasts
SEMANTIC SATIATION- *' Page 29 0
a
showed that the values x;ere ordered as follows^ 8.8 > 3.6 »=
"4.2 > 0".0.° Thus, more errors were made following 3 as
compared td 30 repetitions when the exemplar target from the
repeated category \ was' shown in the upper location, and the
reverse was true when) it appeared in the lower location0< 0 -3
i
The former finding is 'consistent with an effect of semantic
satiation, while'the' latter, provides an inconsistent effect.
I can find no explanation for; these finding-s.
Reaction time also increased significantly» in the NO
MEMBER-NO MATCH condition. This condition is unique with
respect to the others in that there . existed no semantic
assoeiations among the three/$ords that comprised a trial?
neither of the ' targets were exemplars of - the repeated
category, and the targets were neither associatively nor
categorically related. There are two points of view thai
may be taken concerning this result.- One is that the effect
is not real, but is instead a product of sampling error.
Marshalled in "support of this conclusion is the fact that
the data of only. 662 of subjects were' concordant with the
direction of the effect. The other view, that the effect is •* ' „
„ indeed a 'real' one, is difficult to reconcile with the
putative effect of the repetition treatment according,to the
semantic satiation hypothesis. Perhaps the most serious
implication of this view "for the semantic satiation
hypothesis is that there exists some common -process
Jk
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 30
underlying the effects observed in both the MEMBER-MATCH'and
NO MEMBER-NO MATCH, conditions, ''if some common process is if
responsible, it clearly must be. strategic and not
structural. Because the interesting formulation" of the
nature of semantic satiation proposes that - repetition
affects the representation of the concept, evidence pointing
to a strategic explanation provides a . strong challenge to
the - theory. As is often the case with specifying
Strategies, however, solution can be elusive when the . "task
itself is not .completely understood and specific
hypothetical operations«are not tested. Nonetheless, the
possible presence of a strategic influence on the effect of
repetitions on semantic processes was explored in two ways.
First, if the RT increase^ with 30 repetitions in "the NO
MEMBER-NO MATCH condition is due to some strategy, then the
results sin someo of .the remaining conditions of subjects *
.showing this effect should differ from those > who do not.
'Table 4 presents the mean RTs and percent errors derived .by
dividing the subject population into two groups
distinguished by the direction of "the repetition effect in
the NO MEMBER-NO MATCH condition? twenty-one subjects had
slower RTs after 30 repetitions, and 11 had faster RTs. Fete
convenience these sub-groups will be referred to as the slow
and fast groups, respectively. An ANOVA was performed on
both the RT and percent errors that included the 'two groups,
0
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 31
A ' *
, A - t
the other four target conditions, and number of repetitions '
as -factdrs, None of the interactions involving group was
significant (all Fs <1 .,0). Moreover, \ an analysis which
included only the MEMBER-MATCH condition also showed that
the interaction of group with repetitions was not
significant [F(l,30)=2„72] [2]. These analyses therefore
indicate that there is no relation between the effects of
\
repetitions 'observed in the MEMBER-MATCH and UNASSOCIATED-NO
MATCH conditions.
The second approach to an evaluation of the possible
importance of strategies was more direct ,and empirical. To
examine whether the effects of number of repetitions that we
have observe.d might -be attributable to expectancies or ' v
strategies having nothing to do with loss of meaning, the
next experiments attempted to construct a situation in which
expectancies or strategic effects would be minimized or
" 'eliminated, while still • allqwing for-a an «operation that
should be susceptible to any effect'of semanticvsatiatipn.
SEMANTIC SATIATION . Page 3 2
Experiment 5
One v;ay to dissociate the possible effects of strategy
and semantic satiation would require a manipulation that
affords a semantically-mediated process which can foa
affected by , satiation,, and which- is simultaneously 'distant
from strategic control. Perhaps the only type of
manipulation that meets these specifications involves
automatic semantic processing. This^type, of manipulation is
justified on the evidence (slle below) that automatic
semantic processing is not significantly affected by
strategic factors, and ' on th4 assumption that such
processing should be affected if/ the activation - of -the
representations that mediated such processing is attenuated
by the repetition treatment.
Well-known procedures which have promoted a general
interest in automatic psychological processes are the Stroop
task (Stroop, 1935? see Dyer, 1973 for a review), priming
(e.g., Neely, 1977b? Taylor, 1977), and unconscious word
perception (e.g., Balcfta, 1983? Cheeseman and Merikle, in
press? Groeger, 1984? Marcel, 1983). In all of these tasks i ' •«. •
the information available from the irrelevant dimension of a
I stimulus, as in the Stroop .situation, or from a .priming stimulus frequently has been shown to affect processing of a
3
relevant stimulus event without intention on the part of the
subject to make use of that information. An important,
SEMANTIC SATIATION ^ • Page 33
caveat is that in semantic priming experiments (whicftao 'not
make use of a masking stimulus_ in an attempt to eliminate
\ ' awareness of the prime word? see Cheeseman and Merikle, in
press) the rnterval , between the presentation of the prime
and target words (stimulus onset asynchony? SOA) . must be
short" (say Jess than^250-300 msec.? see Neely, 1977b? Posner,
1978). It'has been shown that only with long SOAs can
' atte' tion'al and strategically-flexible operations regulate v » •
th® impact of the prime word on decision latencies (e*g.,
Becker, 1980? den He/er, Briand, and Dannenbring, 1983?
Neely, 1977«b? Simpson an<3 Burgess, in press? • Smith, Briand, < -V
Klein, and denHeyer, 1984? Tweedy and Lapinski, 19"81? ' " V ' \ >
Tweedy, Lapinski, and Schvaneveldt, VL977) [3].°
Consistent with experiments reported earlier in this
thesis .(Experiments 1 and 2), the category membership task , -a
was again used? following repetition of a category name,
subjects were required to decide whether a single target
word was a member'of the" repeated category. The' innovation
on this task consisted in presenting another word along with
the target. The additional word, which will be called the
flanker, was irrelevant to the decision required of. the
target word, and subjects were instructed..to ignore its It
was predicted, however, that the "flanker word would have a
measureable effect on' decision rimes bv virtue of its
semantic-categorical relation to (a) the criterion "category.
J -
w
• ^ r s *
\
% •=* . "
SEMANTIC SATIATION ' Page 34 • •/
.I * a-
and/or *(b) the target word'(see Flower and Wilcox, 1982?
Shaffer and LaBerge, 1979). With regard to relation (a), a
flanker that is from the same' category as , the criterion '
1 . category might facilitate response, decisions to the target
word since the response implied by the flanker agrees ' w.ith
the response required , of the target (Flower and Wilcox,
198'2? Pachella,' 1974). Also with regard to srelation ' (a), .-a -
flanker that is f^om a category that is different- from the
criterion category might interfere'with response decisions , *•
y since the response implied by the flanker conflicts with 'the
U response 'required"of the target. With regard to relation
(b), a flanker that is related to a target might facilitate
"encoding of the target by a mechanism 'like priming
activation, and thereby reduce response times.. The evidence
regarding whether a prime word (here, a flanker) that' is -" ' ' '
unrelated to the. target" ,word can inhibit encoding of 'the
target is inconclusive (cf.- Antos, 1979? Neely, 1977b? • „ "
- Smith/^ and Klein, . 1984). We will therefore not commit our
predictions one way or the other on this, latter point.
S&meyexamples of the^conditions in'the experiment will
serve/ to illustrate these predictions. Table 5 lists
examples of the conditions and indicates the predicted
direction of. the flanker effect in terms of encoding arid
response selection processes. We will' imagine just 3
repetitions for the present, and suppose that the "repeated
( / \/
!
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 35
category name was FRUIT. Two flanker conditions were
, established for positive (MEMBER) trials, with a target such
as APPLE? the flanker could be PLUM or TRUCK,. If seftia'ntio
information about the flanker is activated, evea though
subjects were instructed to ignore the word, in the former
case (targets APPLE, flankers plum? we will adopt the
convention of printing the* target in capitals and the
blanker in lower case) the consistency Of the flanker with t
the category and response appropriate for the target may
facilitate a correct decision. For the latter case
(APPLE-truck) the flanker may have an opposite effect for
the opposite reasons. Three flanker conditions were
"established for NONMEMBER trials, with a target such as CAR?
the flanker could be plum, worm, or truck. In the first
condition (CAR-plum) the flanker is consistent with the
criterion category, but conflicts with, the category of the
target and hence with the appropriate response? the conflict
should increase - decision time and possibly errors. Errors
might increase because the flanker indicates an incorrect
response. In the second condition (CAR-worm) the flanker .is
from' neither the criterion category nor from that of the
target. The flanker is thus consistent with the response
but inconsistent with the category" of the target. Decision
time should be faster and subjects less prone to error -than
in the previous, condition due to response consistency. The
n
SEMANTIC SATIATION' ^ .. ' Page 36
third condition (CAR-truck) displays a flanker from the same
Category as the target? .the redundancy^ gain here ,should
provide for the. fastest; decision times 'of the three
NONMEMBER conditions. We also should' recognize that the
flanker word itself may be primed if it is from the repeated
category.' More rapid encoding of the.flanker should tend to
'increase its impact on target proces sflng. o l 't> l *
In summary, we have raised v%he general question of a
whether the effects of number of repetitions on semantic
decisions^- are an'artifact of strategy or affe instead due to
loss of meaning.'" It seemed desirable to fimd a task that'
provides an effect due 0to autOmaMdWjs^ma'ntic prpcessing,.
.which the literature indicates would be immune to strategic
effects, but which should be susceptible to the,»*hypothesised
effects of semantic satiation. We anticipate some-^clear
effects* of automatic semantic processing in the task"that
has just been outlined.* Should the flanker in fact exercise
such effects, it was then proposed that they would be
attenuated by semantic satiation in those conditions where to
the flanker is from the criterion category. If semantic
satiation is not produced by the repetition treatment, the
flanker effect should be unaffected.
- Before putting the latter hypotheses to the test, it
seemed wise to firsgt see whether the flanker .effects
outlined above could be Obtained at all. A full report of
s •
SEMANTIC SATIATION • . Page 37 -a c*
the pilot experiments is provided, followed by .a more • ' i
thorough reviex-j of the predictions »Sor this task in terras of
the satiation treatment, and then the experiment proper.
/Methodsi Pilo.t experiments
i
Subjects. Thirty-six people (ages 18-25) obtained
through the local employment agency were paid for their
participation. All had .English as their first language and
none had participated in the previous experiments.
.Materials,? Thirty-six category names and four dominant '
" 'exemplars from each of the categories comprised the stimuli.
.Two lists of 144 trials each were constructed, and. in each
t o I
list every category name occurred four times, each exemplar
twice. The number of trials forming each o,f the five
flanker-decision conditions in each list, using examples of
the stimuli for each condition as the least awkward
nomenclature (the criterion category used will be FRUIT),
were; (a) target-APPLE, flanker-plums 36? (b) APPLE-trucks •f
36? (c) CAR-pIums 24? (dLCAR-worms 24? and (e) CAR-trucks ' ^& \> -a
24. ' r • Four additional constraints directed list constructions
.(1) each'"'exemplar appeared -in both „ MEMBER and NONMEMBER
decision trials in each list? (2) within each list, an
. exemplar appeared once as a flanker and once" as a target?
SEMANTIC SATIATION . . Page 38
(3) in the judgment of the experimenter, no incidental
relations „ (categorical or associative) between the category
name, flanker, and target words composing a trial were i
present? and (4).' all of the pairs of exemplars were \
different in'the"two lists. Appendix C provides the lists.
Twenty-four practice trials, using different oategoi{i
and exemplars X-^were provided to illustrate the
requirements and to familiarize the subject with the
displays,
'Procedure. The procedure was the same as in Experiment
2 with two major departures. First, the category name was
flashed on the screen and repeated 3 times by the subjects
on all - trials. The repetition instructions were not
otherwise changed. Second, too display arrangements were
tested" in separate sub-experiments. Twenty subjects were
shovm the flanker word about 1 degree above the fixation
point, 2Q0 msec before the target word replaced the fixation
point (the SOA experiment). In the other sub-experiment, 16
subjects were .shown the flanker word about 1 degree both v
above and below the target word, all appearing
simultaneously (the Simultaneous experiment). In both cases
the^flanker and target words remained on the screen until
the subject's response. The instructions urged the subjects
to ignore the flanker word, pointing out that it is
completely irrelevant to the decision that must b'e made for
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 39
Cr . * , JJ
the target word, and to concentrate their attention in the
• area of the -screen where the target word would appear.
Each subject completed 24 practice trials and six blocks
of 24 experimental trials, separated by a minimum 30-second
rest period. Half of the subjeots received one of the word
lists and the other half received the other list. Half of
the subjects in each display situation signaled MEMBER with
their le'ft index finger and NONMEMBER with their right index
finger, and the other half used" the reverse mapping, " ' i
0
Results and Discussion
The mean RTs and percent errors for the five conditions
are given in Table 6. The data ", in the left and right
columns are from the Simultaneous and SOA experiments,
respectively^ In an overall analysis of these data, no
effects involving list, repetition- trJal assignment, or
# response-hand assignment were observed (all F's" <1„7). The
effect of the flanker on MEMBER decision RT was significant
in both display experiments [t(15^=4„38, t(19)=2-068 for the k °» . • s
Simultaneous and SOA experiments, respectively]„ The effect
,on a'ccu'racy was reliable only inv the Simultaneous experiment
[t(15)=3„00?' SOA, t(19)=lo76]. Performance was therefore
better when the flanker .was consistent with the cri'terion
category and the response required of the target word, .as
compared with a conflicting flanker word. *N>
1 , ' 1
SEMANTIC- SATIATION * j ." Page 40
For the NONMEMBER conditions", the effect of flanker,
conditionn on RT ' was significant only in the Simultaneous
experiment [F(2,°30)=5.29, MSE=1028'? for the SOA - eapferiment,
F(2,38)=2,21, MSE=1294] . Mutually-orthogonal cor" rasts, were
used to evaluate, the Simultaneous results furthere ' The 36 b
msec difference 'between the CAR-plum and CAR-'truck
conditions was reliable [F(2,30)=5.04].» ' The second-contrast
compared the combined effects of the preceding conditions
with the CAR-worm condition. The comparison was, not ' * V '>. ' significant [F(2-,30 )=.19] J* The latter contrast implies that , •> . « •
RT in the CAR-worm condition fell between the observed-,-.,
values for the other two conditions.- vThe effect of flanker
condition on percent errors was not reliable in either.-
- experiment [Simultaneous; F(2,3Q)J=1,69? SOA; F(2 ,38) = „34] „
•b In this experiment, the effect of a flanker word on
category "membership decisions was examined with two. methods
of flanker presentation. The crucial predictions, laid out
earlier (pp. 35-38), were entirely borne out in the data.
from the Simultaneous experiment, and were upheld only for
MEMBER decisions in-the SOA experiment.. The difference in
results between the too methods of flanker presentation - is
interesting, since it might seem somewhat counter-intuitive
that the "effect of the flanker' is smaller or absent when it
is available 200 msec prior to the presentation of the
target as compared to simultaneously available (the account
^ -
SEMANTIC SATIATION , ' - Page 41
provided in Si-mpson and Burgess, in press, could be applied
here).' .However, our interest was to determine whether the
flanker-category membership task would provide a basic
effect of automatic semantic processing. The Simultaneous
'version of the task does provide this effect, and so we will
not consider further the data from the SOA experiment.
To review the bindingss The presence of a flanker from
the criterion category that was consistent with the required-
MEMBER decison (APPLE-plum) seemed to improve performance? a \ji
flanker, from the criterion category that was'inconsistent ) r » I . AS
"with the response (CAR-plum) seemed to hurt performance. In
terms of processing operations, it is not clear whether the
flanker effect might be located at the response - selection
stage, .at the stage of target encoding, or both. The
evidence from the NONMEMBER conditions (RT for "CAR-truck <
CAR-worm °< CAR-plum) suggests an effect of the flanker by
both mechanisms (consult Table 5), The important point is
that the flanker-category « membership task has been
demonstrated to provide a basic effect which is dependent on ' L -
the meaning off the flanker-, and which can now be used to
evaluate further the phenomenon of/semantic satiations
The predictions accorded the' " semantic sa\iation
. hypothesis will now be described for the effect "of « •
repetitions in this task. We will assume the effects just reportedo Firsts the effect of -repetition observed in
SEMANTIC SATIATION • : X " Page'42
>
Experiments 1 and 2 on MEMBER trials should be replicated,
with no effect for the. NONMEMBER trials'. How-will the
flanker effects just reported be modulated by semantic
satiation? If the repetition treatment reduces the
availability of the1 meaning of concepts, then the effect of
redundancy gain or conflict supplied by a flanker when it is
from the category repeated 30 times should be reduced or
eliminated. Therefore, the second hypothesis is that the
magnitude of the flanker effect expected with the MEMBER
conditions with 3 repetitions should be reduced after 30
repetitions. ^The effect of the oflanker in the CAR-plum
condition should be reduced as well. *. Interestingly, the
implicationtfrom the latter condition is that a performance
improvement in the CAR-plum condition is expected following
30 repetitions since- the deleterious effect of 'plum" is
predicted to be reduced when FRUIT is repeated-30 times. If
obtained,-this result would enhance the generality of the
evidence for semantic satiation, since in the previous
studies performance decrements only have been observed.
Performance in ' the other NONMEMBER conditions is not
expected .to change.
Now the potential effects of strategy will be
considered. First of all, if the effects of repetition
observed, so far are. due-to some strategic factor, then the
effect of repetition on category membership decisions should
SEMANTIC SATIATION „ V • 'Page" 43
be similarly observed -here. However, the evidence on
automatic semantic processing suggests that strategy should
not penetrate the effect of the flanker, given the •timing
' and the structure of the task'. Moreover, the contingencies
v/hich a strategy built on the satiation treatment «wquld have
to additionally accommodate, given the variety of
.category—flanker-target relations, would make it unlikely to,
prove useful (or be contrived). Thus, the strategy class of
explanation must predict that the flanker effect will not be
affected by the repetition treatment. . , * i; -
Methodss Main experiment
Subjects, Forty-two introductory psychology students at
Dalhousie participated in the experiment for course credit.
The data •fro'ai too subjects were not considered because they
responded incorrectly on 402 of trials in one of the
conditions. ^All subjects had English as their first
language and none had partiqipated in any of the previous
experiments.
Materials, The two lists froifl Experiment 5 (Appendix C)
vjere usedo
* . • ^ /
Procedure. The procedure and {instructions were
identical to those of the Simultaneous pilot experiment,
.with too major differences. Half of the trials in each CfJ
SEMANTIC SATIATION -. Page 44
condition were assigned "3 repetitions of the category name,
and the other half, 30, An equal number (20) of subjects-
was tested with each of the two lists? half of the subjects '
in these subgroups were given the opposite assignment of .
number of repetitions'to trial-words. The second change was
that all subjects signaled MEMBER with their right index
finger' and NONMEMBER. with their left index ' finger.
Instructions again urged subjects to ignore the flanker
word. Subjects completed the 24 practice and 144
experimental trials in a session approximately one hour
long „ ' ^
Results and Discussion 3 *
The'mean RTs and percent errors are given in Table 7,
Looking first at the effect of the flanker on MEMBER RT with
3 repetitions of the category name, it appears that the
present results replicate those from the pilot experiment
(see Table 6, Simultaneous experiment). The effect
expressed in accuracy in the pilot experiment, however,
•seems not to have been obtained here. Secondly, looking at
the effect of repetitions on category membership decisions
independently of flanker condition, RT increased by 41 msec
for MEMBER decisions (and increased by 7 msec on NONMEMBER
decisions), which*" parallels the effects 'observed -in
Experiments 1 and 2._ The third and most interesting aspect
6 a
SEMANTIC SATIATION t Page 45,
•P
of these data concerns the interaction between flanker
condition and number of repetitions of the category .name.
For MEMBER decisions the flanker effect was 23 . msec
following 3 repetitions and was reduced to 7 msec following
30 repetitions. This indicates that extended repetition of
the category name attenuated the impact of the flanker word
on MEMBER decisions.
For NONMEMBER decisions, it seems that the effect of the
flanker on RT with 3 repetitions paralleled the effect
observed previously (i.e., RT in CAR-truck < CAR-worm <
CAR-plum). Second, the overall effect .of repetitions on
NONMEMBER decisions was much smaller than that observed for
MEMBER decisions. Finally, it would appear that repetitions
did not appreciably' attenuate the flanker effect as
estimated by RT. Although "the difference between . the
CAR-plum and CAR-truck flanker conditions-, as,, an example,
was reduced from 28 msec with 3 repetitions to 19 msec with
30 . repetitions, thisris largely due to the 12 msec increase
in RT in the CAR-truck condition. If we consider errors, T however, subjects seemed to make substantially more errors
©
after 3 repetitions when the flanker was an exemplar of the
criterion category, as compared to all of the other
NONMEMBER flanker-repetition conditions. It would seem that
the meaning of the flanker word in the CAR-plum condition
.sometimes intruded in the response decision process to lead
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 46
«
subjects to' an incorrect response. Following -30
repetitions, this difference in accuracy disappeared;
An overall analysis of both RT' and percent errors,
revealed no effects involving list or repetition-trial
assignment (all F°s <1.0). Table 8 'provides a summary of
the table present the contrasts that were tested %nd their
the subsequent analysis of these data. The three panels of
ant
outcomes for RT for MEMBER (panel A) and NONMEMBER (panel B)
decisions, and for perce&t errors far NONMEMBER decisions
(panel C)? there i?as not a significant overall effect of
condition in errors for MEMBER decisions [F(3,117)=.83,
MSE=31.49]'.
In panel A (MEMBER decisions, RT), the analysis revealed
that the flanker effect was-present following 3 repetitions
(contrast 1) but was not present following 30 repetitions,
(-contrast 2), and that the effect of repetitions overall, was
to increase decision time (contrast 3).
In panel B (NONMEMBER decisions, RT) the analysis showed
that there was no reliable effect of repetitions in any of
the 'flanlcer conditions (contrasts 1-3). The last two
contrasts evaluate the effect of the flanlcer on decision
times. Contrast 4 revealed that RT was longer in the
"CAR-plum condition as compared to the CAR-truck condition.
The last contrast was not significant, and^implies that RT
in the CAR-worm condition was intermediate between the too
SEMANTIC SATIATION • ' Page 47
former conditions. " 0 - *•
In panel C (NONMEMBER decision^ percent errors), the
results from-the cascaded set" of contrasts indicate*.. that
subjects made more errors in the CAR-plum "conditions X:
following 3 repetitions than in any of the Q;kher conditions
(contrast 5), which did not themselves differ (contrasts
1-4). -Thus, the effect of the flanker was observed in o
accuracy only in the .CAR-plum-3 repetitions condition. ' >0 r 0
These results may° be summarized as fdllowss (1)
prolonged repetition of a category name increases the time
to correctly decide tfhat an .exemplar is , a member of ffoat
category? (2) category 'membership decision performance is
susceptible to the meaning of an irrelevant flanker word?
and (3) prolonged repetition of a category name eliminates
reduces the impact on category membership decisions of a 11 —
flanlcer word that is an exemplar of the repeated category. o
The last point is qualified because on NONMEMBER, decisions
the 'flanker «effect in the CAR-plum condition, as estimated
by RT, was not affected by the number of ^repetitions. As
estimated by performance accuracy, however, the flanker
effect was eliminated.
"It seems unlikely that reduction of the'flanker effect
by prolonged repetition of 'a category name can be explained.
as an artifact of strategy. These data can therefore be'
viewed as constituting strong evidence converging- with the
0
ex
SEMANTIC- SATIATION ' ' Page 48
) results from Experiments 1, 2, and 4 on the, hypothesis that
prolonged repetition reduces the availability of the' meaning
General -Discussion
The current experiments have shown that prolonged visual
• fixation and vocal repetition of a category name selectively
impedes the processing of semantic information pertaining^.to
that category. This was demonstrated in three different
ways. First, the RTs for category membership decisions to-
exemplars from the criterion "category increase with number
of repetitions (Experiments 1, 2, and 5). Second, the
amount o£ time required to decide that two words are'from
^ the same* category increased following prolonged repetition
of a category .name that was irrelevant to the decision, when
'the target words were members of the repeated category
(Experiment 4).' Third, the repetition treatment attenuated
automatic semantic processing of an irrelevant flanker word > * "
taken from the repeated category, as indexed by the reduced
effect the flanker had on category membership decisions to
an attended0target.
An additional finding, replicating previous work (Cohene
et . aifee 1978? Neely, 1977a), was that-priming by a category
name in the lexical decision task is not influenced by the
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 49
number of times that the subject repeats the prime word.
Many general theoretical approaches to these data can be
found in the literature on inhibitory semantic priming
effects. However, the evidence of inhibition from prior
exposure to semantically related material is derived from a
variety of methodologies which includes episodic recognition
(Neely, Schmidt, and Roediger, 1983? Roediger and Neely,
1982) and recall (Mueller and Watkins, 1977), alphanumeric
matching (Neill, 1979), target generation JBlaxton and
Neely, 1983? Brown, 1981), and category matching (under
certain conditions? Rosch, 1975), One might suspect that
evidence of inhibitory semantic priming, obtained from such a
diverse set of tasks might be due to a common . mechanism.
Recent syntheses of this literature (Blaxton*and Neely,
1983? Roediger and Neely, 1982) provide some ideas,* but as
yet no completely satisfactory or unifying account.
Borrowing from some of that work, several general accounts
of the present data will be considered.
A parallel-access framework, along the lines of Morton's
(1970, 1979) logogen model, or one that makes use of the
resonance metaphor (e.g., Gordon, 1983? Ratcliff, 1978),
provides a. possible understanding of some of the present
data. Upon"presentation and pronunciation of a word, the
logogen for that word and other logogens that are
graphemically, phonemicallyV* anjjr semantically similar will
SEMANTIC SATIATION *\ , Page. 50
i . c.
I . pe activated. Initially, this lwould generally facilitate
retrieval of information in activated logogens (see Morton,
1979, for details of the principles of his model). However,
if logogens can be fatigued by prolonged activation (e.g.,
Martindale, 1981, pg. • 199), as in the repetition treatment,
then retrieval of information related to the satiated word
would be effectively inhibited [4].- Similarly, 'by adopting
the assumption that prolonged' activation can engender
negative threshold changes or localized inhibition, models
of spreading activation in semantic memory (e.g., Collins*
and Loftus, 1975) can afford an account of semantic
satiation. Decisions which require activation (i.e.,
retrieval) of information in logogens or nodes in semantic
memory will require more time if the stuctures are resistant e
to such activation. ' Effects „due to automatic se'mantic
processing will be also be suppressed.
The logogen and spreading activation accounts must
handle the finding that category membership decisions t-Jith
nonexemplars are not affected by number of repetitions
(Experiments 1,2, and 5). One of many possible solutions to
this problem is to suppose that subjects evaluate a target
exemplar to determine the name of the category (or
^categories) to which it may belong. If the taxonomic
category for the target exemplar does not match the
criterion category in a graphemic,phonological, or episodic
\ . \
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 51
code, a NONMEMBER decision can be made. No information
about the meaning of the criterion category is required. .
Therefore, within the present framework, NONMEMBER decisions
would not be affected by prolonged repetition of. an
unrelated category.
The logogen/netoork models also must address the failure
to obtain evidence for an effect of number of repetitions
with the priming-lexical decision task (Experiment 3). At
the core of many models of lexical priming (e.g., Collins
and Loftus, 1975? Neely, 1977b) is the postulate that-
priming relies on activation of nodes in ' semantic memory, „
If we accept the position that semantic satiation, by some
mechanism, inhibits activation of semantic information
related to the satiated word, such models of lexical priming
seem inadequate? lexical priming should be impaired.
One convergence of ' the semantic satiation and
priming-lexical decision experiments that can get around
this problem assumes ' that priming in the lexical decision
task is not mediated by 'semantic' structures (Fodor, 1982,
pp.73-75? Morton, 1970). According to this position,
lexical priming might be based 'on associations between
words, perhaps at a phonological or graphemic level of
representation. If priming by an ostensibly semantic
relation is indeed mediated by nonsemantic structures,
semantic satiation should have no effect on its magnitude.
SEMANTIC SATIATION ' * ^ Page 52
Although this account of priming is not widely accepted, it
cannot be ruled out.
Retaining the conventional semantic network framework
(Collins and Loftus, - 1975? Neely, 1977b), a different
account of the data from the present experiments is based on
the assumption that semantic satiation reduces the rate of
spread of activation and search in the satiated category's
structure. Put in other words, it is assumed that the rate
of flow of aetivation along a link between nodes in memory
is reduced when' that link is repeatedly utilized as. during
repetitions (the "sluggish link' hypothesis). Activation of • " " to •• * "
nodes '- er se, however," is not in aj3y way .impaired. It. is
also assumed that the grocess of retrieving the name of the
category sof which a target word is an exemplar,, or
determining that two- exemplars) "'arte- from the same category,\ ' 1
involves traversing links which connect the exemplar to the
superordinate category. * From these assumptions it- follow?
that (a) semantic satiation will increase, the sea'reh. time or
MEMBER decisions and hence MEMBER RT (Experiments 1, 2, and
5). I30NMEMBER decisions would not b.e affected by semantic
satiation since retrieval of the category name and the
process of comparing the retrieved and criterion category
names does not involve the slug°gish -links within the
structure- of the satiated category? (b) the time to decide
that two words are from the same category- (Experiment, 4)
-SEMANTIC SATIATION ' " -' Page 53 ,ft 1 -' ^
will similarly take more time since the search process would
be slowed? (c) lexical priming would be expected to remain rv
intact. tThis is because priming activation 'of exemplars
*would still occur during the lengthy satiation period J ,even
though the time for, activation to arrive at* exemplar nodes C U J,
following each repetition would be increased. .Implicit in
this argument0, is the assumption that lexical decisions can
be made without actually penetrating the semantic structure^ '
(d) the " impact of automatic • semantic processing of an 0 i V
irrelevant flanker word wjhich is an exemplar of the
semantically satiated category, presented at the same time
as a target word for a semantic decision, should be reduced.
The evidence from Experiment 5 suggests that a flanker word
exerts its effect by (i) .facilitating encoding of the target
word when it is from the same category as the flanker word'
(the RT difference between the, CAR-truck .and CAR-worm
conditions), and (ii) by response consistency or conflict.
The former -mechanism requires that we assume,associations
between exemplars within a category? a simple link [5].
Encoding facilitation is thus equivalent td automatic
priming activation, which would be impaired by sluggish" • D
links, given that the f;lanket. and target are temporally
coincident. Response consistency or conflict also .depends
on 'activation of the category name of which the flanker is ft " .
an exemplar. The process of accumulating sufficient
SEMANTIC SATIATION / , • Page 54
evidence^ updn which to base a decision ^(see Logan and
Zbrodoff, 1979? Pachella, 1974) can be either facilitated or
extended in time if the contribution fr&m -the flanker word J * • . .
is either consistent or conflicts with the evidence .from the
target word. Sluggish links would-' inhibit the 'accumulation
of evidence normally contributed by the flanker, and
accordingly remove the benefit or cost of consistent or
conflicting evidence,in, the decision process.
The sluggish ltink assumption, embedded in current/ views
of semantic information processing, seems to"enable an ad
hoc account of the performance manifestations of semantic
satiation. However, the above theory was required" to
accommodate very few empirical observations, and has not
beeji directly tested. This remains for future work. The is-
present contribution is an empirical validation of the* term
"semantic satiation" as a'description of the consequences of
prolonged repetition of a word.
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 55
Footnotes
.«*
\
[1] There 4 are three possible outcomes for this condition. - First, »RT could increase with repetitions," which could reflect .an effect of semantic satiation, given that one of the targets is an exemplar of the/repeated category. Second'', RT may show no change. This outcome would not challenge the semantic satiation hypothesis since subjects can determine a NO MATCH decision by lack ,of an elementary semantic "relation between the targets. Third, RT could decrease with number of repetitions. This i£ the only outcome that could be damaging', to the semantic satiation hy/pothesis.
a [2] Given the reduced sample sizes,' for the purpose of argument we will examine trends in these, data for clues as to "possible strategies that may have been used. Comparing the slow and fast groups, >it seems that there was a general tendency for subjects to respond more quickly following 30 repetitions in the fast group across almost all conditions. Iri this group only the conditions in which one or both of the targets were'members of the repeated category is there an indication that the 'fast' tendency was frustrated. On the surface of it, then, this weak pattern appears to be •consistent with the semantic satiation hypothesis.
If an opposite tendency to respond more slowly followingq "*30 repetitions was present in the slow group, then one might . expect RT to be slower across conditions, but this seems" not '. to be the case. One conspicuous aspect of the slow group's data is the 22S. error rate following 30 repetitions in the ASSOCIATED-NO MATCH condition (compared-with 12.2S in the fast group)» This might indicate that the subjects in the slow group were more sensitive to the presence of some relation in the words composing a trial, especially following 30 repetitions. If this was so, since the NO MEMBER-NO, MATCH condition is characterized by an absence of any relation,, subjects might have engaged an additional check on those trials following 30 repetitions,- to ensure that they had not mistaken the absence of a relation. This
^ Trou-ld explain the increase in RT that defines the slow group. There is nothing in these data to indicate why subjects would have performed11 the additional check following 30, , repetitions", but the effects of boredom, or fatigue that accompany about 23 seconds of repetition might ' conceivably be compensated by increased reliance on semantic similarity as a basis for decision.
This analysis', speculative as it is, does not conflict with the semantic satiation, hypothesis. Although I have not
SEMANTIC SATIATION ' Page 56
found one that does, ' it seems, pragmatically and statistically, that, there is no relation between the effect of repetition in the MEMBER-MATCH and NO MEMBER-NO MATCH conditions.
[3] Forster (1981) and others (e.f., Becker, 1980? de "" Groot, -1983, ch, 6? Neely,- 1976? West and Stanovich, 1983) have proposed that priming effects might not be completely attributable" to, encoding facilitation of a target due'to spreading activation, Jsut may additionally derive from post-lexical decision-based operations.' In its'most general e form, this class of theory assumes that evidence concerning '-the' identity-- of the 'prime word -is integrated with evidence about the target word in terms of -converging on a response decision. ' In the complicated process of translating lexical, information into a response decision, compatibility of the' targeJ't wor/S with the context supplied by the priming ..stimulus can facilitate a decision. While the details, and-similarities and differences found. in the.., proposed po'st-access theories are extensive, for our present purposes we .need only recognize that they were all primarily designed pto -explain results from experiments (a) with sentence "contexts, which ^necessarily provide sufficient time for attentional processes, to strategically influence decision operations' ('e.g., Eisenberg and Becker, 1982? Forster," 198,1? Stanovich and West, 1983), hand (b) single word, priming experiments that make use of long SOAs (e.g., Becker, 1980? den Heyer et al, 1983? Mitchell and Green, 1978? Simpson and Burgess, in press?.Smith 'et al, 1984? Tweedy et al, 1977? see discussion in Stanovich ,and West, 1983). .When
/ post-access and decision-based explanations -of single-word priming effects have, been considered to successfully accommodate evidence from "experiments using a short SOA, it has been recognized that their operation is probably •automatic (e.g., palota and Chumbley, 1984? de Groot, 1983? • Shaffer and*La^erge, 1978? Simpson and Burgess, in press?-Stanovich -and West, 1983, pp„28-29). Thus, the bulk of the evidence and argument supports the assumption that semantic processing of context-words at • short SOAs facilitates target processing , and' decision operations automatically, and without the participation of flexible strategies.
The, work by Logan (1980? Logan and -Zbrodoff, 1979)- on-the rc/le of' strategy in a Stroop-like task should also be considered. In thosQ experiments, subjects^ were assigned different response_ buttons for the words ABOVE and BELOW, which could appear either above or below the fixation point (after Palef and .Olson, 1975). -Logan and Zbrodoff found that there was'an inverse rel/ation between the probability, known in advance bp^the subject, that the irrelevant spatial information could predict the response, and RT. This
\
SEMANTIC SATIATION . •" • " • Page 57
occurred with both consistent and conflicting word-position information, __although asymmetrically, favouring the consistent case,- This demonstration of the strategic utilization of information from an ' ostensibly irrelevant, though integral, dimension of the stimulus is not of concern in the present experiment. The deoision mechanism accommodates the information from, the" irrelevant dimension of the stimulus by adjusting decision criteria before a stimulus is ^presented, an.d can therefore 6e $lewed as a limited attentional process, rather that as one which makes use of- contingencies that, become apparent only after the stimulus has been presented. Also, by interpolation, when the predictive value of the irrelevant dimension was about ,5, no effect was apparent,. In the present experiments, the pre.dictive value of the flanker was ,58,
[4] Blaxton and Neely (1983) considered how information concerning a specific category might be inhibited by prior processing in the same semantic category in,a situation where subjects are expected to generate exemplars of' a category that begin with a specified letter. Some of those ideas might be considered here. Subjects, may covertly ' but actively retrieve many exemplars from the category in anticipation of an exemplar target (Brown, 1981). ' To « sustain retrieval of new candidate target exemplars during the extended, 30-repetition period., items which had been retrieved initially might need to be inhibited, effectively increasing RT for these latter items. A variant of this 'position is that prolonged retrieval of items from a single category may instill a global retrieval blo€k of exemplars (see Blaxton and Neely, 1983? Brown., 1981). Accounts of this type might assume that the observed effect of number of repetitions arises not from repetition and satiation of the category name per se, but from prolonged implicit recollection of exemplars. However, the informal reports by our subjects indicated that they were quite occupied by the rapid pronunciation task itself, 'and -did not claim to actively recall as many exemplars as possible, Repetition also engenders an experienced phonological distortion (Warren, 1968) of the word, which may require additional concentration in order that correct pronunciation of the word be preserved. Also, Experiment 4 demonstrated an effect of semantic satiation when the- decision was not based on any particular category, a situation in which generation of exemplars from a particular category might ' be more distracting than fruitful. Nonetheless, these ideas remain plausible-;
. « •* . i
[5] I' want to make a few points concerning the use of the terms 'link' and 'node'. In my view, these are" terms of
•a
-I
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 58
convenience that serve to simplify communication about' the macro-structure of semantic knowledge. The information 'contained' in a node is-rarely revealed by authors who use the term, and -they could be relying on any of many conceptual schemes. <• It is usually used in a context which suggests that it refers to the psychological representation of a concept. Discussion of the nature of concepts and categories (Fodor, 1982; McCloskey and Glucksberg, 1979? Smith o and Me,din, 1981? Wilson, 1980)^ quickly reveals'that a, concep°t, such as 'tree', is actually a collection of properties or propositions (has leaves/needles, is tall, has roots, needs water, etc), which "are themselves concepts. Thus, a concept is by its very nature 'linked" to other concepts (tree-shrub) by virtue of shared properties. Hollan (1975) essentially .has made this point in his arguments that" network theories (i,e. Collins and Loftus, ' 1975) are notational -variants of semantic feature models (i.e. Smith et al, 1974). The network notation is, as suggested earlier, more- convenient and powerful for constructing theories of processing the meaning of sentences (Anderson, 1976? Johnson-Laird, Herrmann, and Chaffin, 1984?**' Lindsay and Norman, 1977). Thus,-a node 'can be viewed as a set of relations '(intra-node links?) between properties that comprise a concept, and links (inter-node links) can be viewed also as representational structures that specify relations between concepts. Exactly where a node end^ and a link begins is an artificial issue raised by ihe network metaphor? it is important to simply appreciate /that nodes and links, as the terms are used here, do different jobs in representing and using knov/ledge.
1>
SEMANTIC SATIATION 0 " Page 59
Number of * Repeti t ions MEMBER NONMEMBER
Experiment 1
Experiment 2
3 -
30
3
30
638 (1.9)
571 (2,5)
634 (4=7)
% 5 (4.7)
775 <5.6)
754 (3.1)
723 (9.1)
721 (6.2)
Table L. Mean Reaction Times (and Percent Errors) from Experiments 1 and 2.
(
SEMANTIC SATIATION . Page 60
V
Number of Repetitions RELATED UNRELATED NONWORD
: *
3 622 (5.6) 696 (12.5) ^ 766 (8.7)
30 627 (7.5) 693 (15.0) 779 (7.2)
Table 2. Mean Reaction Times (and Percent Errors) from Experiment 3. _
SEMANTIC SATIATION (
Number of Repetitions
- Condition 3 30
Member-Match 864 (4.4) 910 (5.3)"
Nonmember-Match 1075 (14.7) 1047 (15.3)
Associated-No Match 1253 (15.6) 1203 (18.7)
One Member-No Match Q 1077 (4.0) 1078 (4.8)
No Member-No Mafch 1076 (1.3) 1134 (2.6)
Table 3. Mean Reaction Times (and Percent , -Errors) from Experiment 4 .
Q
SEMANTIC SATIATION ^ Page 62
Slow Group Fast Group
Condition
Number of' Repeti t ions
30 30
Member-Match 872 (4.3) 939 (5.7) 846 C4.5) 856 (4.5)
Nonmember-Match " 1076 (13.8) 1035 (15.7) 1070 (16.4) 1029 (19,1)
Associated-No Match 1275 "(16.7) 1237 (22.0) 1210 (13.6) 1136 (12.2)
One,Member-Wo Match 1108 (4.7) 1093 (5.3) 1016 (2.5) 1042 (3.8)
Ho Member-No Match 1053 (1.3) 1196 (2.7) 1120 (1.3) 1016 (2.5)
Table 4. Mean Reaction Times (and Percent Errors) for the sub-groups identified in Experiment 4 (see text).
1
..a *
*
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 63
Cr i te r ion Category Target Flanker Encoding Response
FRUIT APPLE
APPLE
CAR
CAR
CAR
plum
truck
plum "
worm
truck
+
o/-
o/-
' ~o/-
+
+
-
-
+
+
Table 5. Predicted direction of the flanker effect (+ indicates facilitation; o indicates no 'effect; - indicates inhibition or interference) for the five conditions in Experiment' 5„
\
«*
SEMANTIC SATIATION P'age 64
Essperiment Cri ter ion Category Target . Flanker Simultaneous ' SOA
FRUIT APPLE
APPLE
CAR
CAR
CAR
plum
truck
plum -
worm
truck
664 (7.3)
695 (14.2)
737 (7.1)
725 (5.4)
701 (4.6)
640 (5.3)
668 (9.0)
701 (4.6) <> 682 (4.5)
680 (3.6)
Table 6. Mean Reaction Times (and Percent Errors) from the two pilot sub-experiments (Experiment 5).
SATIATION Page 65
Criterion Category Target Flanker
Number of Repetitions
3 30
FRUIT
1!
11
II
II
APPLE
APPLE
CAR
CAR
, CAR
plum
truck
plum i
worm
truck
^580 (6.0) '
603,16.4) # o
656 (8.5)
641 (4.1) "
628 (3.7) *
629 (4.5)
636 «(5.'8)
659 (4.-7)
649 (3.8)
640 t4.§)
Table 7. Mean Reaction Times (and Percent Errors)° from Experiment 5 (Main).
T"
l • •
Condition APPLE-plum APPLE-truck APPLE-plum APPLE-truck Repetitions 3 3 30 30 Sample mean 580 • 603 . 629 ^ 636 Fh
* P<°05 . , - , Table 8 - Contrasts used in the analysis of Experiment 5 (Main). Panel A: MEMBES conditions, RT.
Panel B: NONMEMBER conditions, RT. i^anel C: NONMEMBER conditions. Percent Errors.- The « column of numbers in parentheses at the left in each panel is the contrast's number, as
referred to in the text.
en
. (1) (2) (3)
-
Condition * Repetitions Sample mean
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Condition Repetitions Sample mean
(1) (2)
- (3) - (4) (5)
'
1
1
CAR-truck" 3 628
1 a
1 1
CAR-truck. 3 3 7
1 1 1 1 -1
-
-1.
1
CAR-truck 30 640
-1
1 1
CAR-truck 30 3.8
-1 1 1 1 1
•
-?
\
' ' 1 -1
-1 --1
F(3,117)=25.06,
CAR-worm 3 641
1 .
-2'
CAR-worm 3 4\1
-2 1 1 1
CAR-worm 30 649
--1
-2
CAR-worm 30 " 4.6
-3 1 1
3.47" - .32 22.03*
MSE=1017.
CAR-plum 3
. 656 '
-
1 -1 ' 1
F(5
CAR-plum 3© 4.7
f
' * * , -4
1
CAR-plum 30
" 659
o-
-I -L 1
,195)=3.46.
CAR-plum 3 8.5
, *
-5
F(5,195)=3.56,
, MSE
MSE=
-
Fh .
.37
.06
.02,. 2.83' .00
=15601
Fh
.00
.02
.09
.07 3.44*
<36.16
s >3 o Cfl
t-3
o 3
-
&
V
SEMANTIC SATIATION
Appendix A Stimuli from Experiments 1-3
List Prime
Time Metal Dog ^Colour crime ''Weapon Sport Music Vehicle Dance Flower Tree Snake Drug A>
Pood Tool Spice Game Car * Month Gem Animal Cloth Fuel Liquor • Fruit Weather Bird Toy Insect Disease Pish City Plant Country Money Snack Drink Seafood Emotion
. 1 Target
Minute Gold Poodle Blue Mure1 or Gun, Hockey Jazz Truck Disco Rose Maple Cobra .Heroin Bread * Hammer Pepper Chess Ford Apsril Horse Cotton Oil Scotch Apple Rain Robin, Doll Spider Cancer Salmon Halifax Cactus •Russia Dollar .Candy > Water Lobster • Lovte plafond
List Prime
Gem Animal' Cloth Fuel Liquor Fruit Weather Bird Toy Ingect Disease Fish City Plant-Country Money ' Snack Drink Seafood Emotion Time •Metal Dog Colour- ^ Crime Weapon Sport Music Vehicle Dance .Flpwer Tree Snake Drug Food. • Tool „ Spice Game Car Month •
2 Target 0
Diamond Horse Cotton' Oil ' Scotch Apple Rain \Robin DoJ.1 Spider Cancer Salmon Halifax Cactus Russia Dollar Candy Water Lobster Love Gold Poodle Blue -Murder Hockey Jazz -.Minute '- Truck Disco Rose , Maple . Cobra Heroin. B°read * Hammer ^Pepper Chess • Ford April Gun
M \
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page
Appendix B a Stimuli from Experiment 4
S
\
Category name Targets
(MEMBER-MATCH)* Time. «0 Gem Metal'| „ , . Animal J3og
* C Loth \ Cqlour , \Fuel ' ' \ <2rime „
;- Liquor \ flower ? 4
Tree Fish' '„ Snalce * .Furniture Drug- • • Plant • Food Country
(NO MEMBER-MATCH)' Weapon Fruit Sport Weather • * Music Bird ^ v
Vehicle ' s Toy > Dance Insect
' TOQl Money Spice Snake
( Game Drink 'Meat Rodent Planet Emotion
8 Minute Ruby Copper tGOW Poodle. Cotton" Red Oil
tMurdeV I Whiskey Rose Cancer ,v Maple ' *«' Trout - • Cobra
^ Table, 'Heroin
Bre%d * Fra-nce
i"1
Ant-Jazz Robin Gun , x-Slp. u ** Hockey Apple-" Hail Car Disco T.enssis Candy Rat
• wrench Pepper, Love * -Dollar Pluto Milk Pork
Year Opal Iron Bear Collie Velvet Yellow
C$ Coal • Fraud
% Rum Tulip
s Flu Oak
, ' Guppy Fython
• ^Sofaa '.Aspirin, ; Cactus • Cake x ,
Mexico b.
Flea Blues
' Owl Rifle
„ Skate Soccer
„ Peach Rain Truck Waltz -
. Golf Gum
' Gopher .« "Hammer
''Gar lid Anger
>\ P^so Mars* ,Juice Veal
\ SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 69*
Appendix B continued
Category name Target Flanker
(ASSOCIATED-Time Metal Dog Flower Tree Snake
• Weapon Sport Music TOOl tSplce Game
(ONE MEMBER-Gem Animal Cloth Fuel Disease Fish » Furniture Fruit ,Wea ther Bird Vehicle Money? „ Drug
' Meat
-NO MATCH) Ruby
, Flu ' " ( Car K Hockey \Mexico -Table Mimute Coftton
- s&i'K. /RUIiJJ><i \Y_el^Qw/ Garli/c
>N0 MATCH) ~r Opal Be.ar .Velvet Coal
i Cancer
v Guppy**' .Sofa Blues Ant
> Cactus ' Poodle
' ' Pluto
tCobra °D£SCO„
(NO MEMBER-NO MATCH) Crime Liquor-Cplour Plant Food Country o. Snack ** "' Toy .;.
- Dance ,,. 'Insect Drink 'Rodent Planet. J" Emotion
Cdilie Year France
n Fraud ""' . Golf
Python Gopher
" 'Gum. *} , _. Iron
„ Apple Pepper" 'Trout Lvy Rat %
Red Aspirin Oil Skate Peso Tennis <," Waltz j Candy^/ MiSlc Cake Tulip Bread
• Ju\ce Copper Murder Love Wrjnch Rose Whiskey Peach Rain
' Owl Truck Dollar Heroin„
\ Pork
'Mars. , I$.ea
Ve'al Robin
o Oak Gun Soccer
( Hail Maple Hammer Rifle Jazz Anger Ski
<D
SEMANTIC SATIATION
Appendix C Stimuli from Experiment 5 (List 1)
Category name Target Flanlcer
(APPLE-plum) Time ' Gem Metal Animal Dog . Cloth \ Colour Fuel -Crime Liquor Flower Disease
• Tree Fish. Snake Furniture Plant'* Food 4
Country, ' Weapon Fruit Sport Weather Music
• Bird Vehicle Insect Tool Vegetable Spice Clothing
° Game -• vDrink ^Meat Rodent Emotion
* Year Opal Iron Bear Collie Velvet Yellow Coal, Fraud Rum Tulip
' Flu Oak Guppy Boa SofaT" Cactus Cake Mexico Rifle ' Peach 'Soccer -Rain Opera Owl Truck Ant Wrench Pea Garlic Skirt Poker Water Bacon Gopher
, Anger.
Minute Ruby Copper Cow Poodle Cotton Red Oil Murder Whiskey Rose Cancer Maple Trout Cobra Table Ivy Bread France Gun Apple Hockey Hail Classical Robin o Car Fly Hammer Bean Pepper Socks Chess Milk Beef Mouse Love
SEMANTIC SATIATION
Appendix C (List 1) continued
Category name
('APPLE-truck) ? Time Gem Metal „ Animal Dog Cloth Colour Fuel Crime Liquor Flower Disease Tree Fish Snake Furniture Plant Food Country Weapon Fruit: Sport . ' Weather " Music gird \ -.Vehicle ^ — ~ 'Inject I nT01« \' Vegetable \ Spice •" \ Clothing ,
,„ Game Drink •Meat Rodent Emotion
Target
Second' Emerald Zinc Lion Hound Silk Blue Gas Rape Gin Daisy Polio Pine Shark Python Chair Vine
" Rice Poland Sword Pear Tennis Snow Jazz Hawk Buq * Beetle Saw " Lettuce . Cloves
s Coa,t Bridge Juice Veal !•**' Squirrel -Joy
Flanlcer
Cheese Russia Plum Bomb-Golf Thunder Folk Canary Jeep Wasp Chisel' Onion , Oregano Hat Monopoly Porkr Rat Fear Coffee Week Diamond Tin Horse Beagle' Rayon Purple Butane Theft Scotch Diabetes Orchid ^Willow ^ Viper ° Desk Weed Tuna '
&
SEMANTIC SATIATION
Appendix-C (List 1) continued
Category name Target Flanker
(CAR-plum) Time Gem Metal '• Animal Dog Cloth Colour Fuel "" Cr,ime Liquor Flower Disease Tree Fish Snake Furniture Plant Food Co'untry Weapon Fruit Sport Weather Music
0
Orchid Poodle Murder Scotch Table Maple Cobra Cheese Cancer Thunder Gun Classical Mouse f Apple Jeep Ruby Fear Diabetes Cotton Willow Copper Ivy Golf Russia
Year Opal Iron Lion Beagle Silk Blue Gas Rape Gin Tulip Flu Oak ' Guppy Python Chair
( Weed Rice Mexico Rifle Peach Soccer Snow Opera
SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 73-
Appendix C., (List 1) continued
Category name
(CAR-worm) Time Gem .„ -Metal Animal Dog Cloth Colour Fuel Crime Liquor Flower Disease Bird Vehicle Insect Tool Vegetable Spice Game Drink Meat
» Rodent Emotion
Target
Hammer Rat Trout Minute Chess Car Hail Fly Chisel Cow Diamond Weed Coffee Beef Oregano Canary Tuna Socks Week Oil . Monopoly Purple Wasp
• Flanker
'
Squirrel Second Cloves Poker Rain Saw Shark Polio Cactus Emerald Truck Owl Pea Coat
^ Wrench Beetle Bridge Joy
' '- Bacon Pine Gopher Bus Juice
-ft-v.
SEMANTIC SATIATION > _ Page 74
Appendix C (List 1) continued
Category name Target . Flanker
^(CAR-truck) Tree Fish Snake Furniture Plant Food Country Weapon Fruit Sport Weather Music Bird Vehicle Insect Tool Vegetable Spice Clothing Game Drink ,'~s\ Meat J RodenE*-^ Emotion •
Prance Tin Horse ' Beagle $ Butane Red Viper Bread Theft Plum 'Whiskey Rose Water Desk Bomb Hockey Robin Rayon Bean Folk
t Hat Love Pepper Pork
Poland Zinc Bear Collie Coal Yellow Boa Cake Fraud Pear Rum Daisy Milk Sofa Sword Tennis Hawk Velvet Lettuce Jazz Skirt Anger Garlic Veal
\
SEMANTIC SATIATION
Appendix C (List 2)
Category name
(APPLE-plum) Time- Gem Metal Animal Dog Cloth 'Colour Fuel crime Liquor Flower Disease Tree Fish Snake Furniture Plant Food Country Weapon » Fruit Sport Weather Music Bird * Vehicle .Insect f Tool •Vegetable Spice Clothing •Same Drink
' Meat Rodent Emotion
Target
Week Diamond Tin Horse Beagle Rayon Purple Butane Theft Scotch Orchid Diabetes "Willow Tuna ' •> Viper* Desk •* Weed - Cheese ,Russia. Bomb • fttum Sffolf Thunder Folk Canary Jeep Wasp Chisel Onion Oregano Hat Monopoly-Coffee Pork Rat\ 'Fear
Flanker
(
Second Emerald Zinc Lion Hound
A Silk Blue Gas Rape < Gin Daisy^ Polio Pine Shark Python Chair Vine Rice Poland Swprd Pear Tennis Snow
* Jazz Hawk Bus Beetle -Saw Lettuce Cloves Coat Bridge Juice Veal Squirrel j o y — —
<*%,
SEMANTIC SATIATION'
Appendix C (List 2) continued
Category name Target'' Flanker
(APPLE-truck) "'' Time Gem Metal , _ • Animal i Dog -Cloth „ Colour Fuel • Crime • ., ^Liquor ,•
Flower* m. „ Disease Tree ' '
- -Fireh Snake > • a
I ° I
urniture lant
i Blood ' Country '.Weapon Fruit.' Sport
, Weather Music i - J -Bird Vehicle Insect Tool -Vegetable ' «pice ""' _
• Clothing # ' « „ 'Game " ' •*»' •Drink* •. Meat ' „Rodent * ,1 Junction <,
. Minute Ruby" Copper C9W •Foodie Cotton Red 'Oil Murder' 0 . Whiskey Rose '" » ^ Cancer Oak • Guppy Cobra ." "?
(.Table , * v
'ivy ;L Bread . »
" France Gun „ , .Apple ^Hoek.ey •>' ' ••„' Hat°l: ' . \ Classical0
Robin * ' Car -° -Fly Hammer ' , •Bean •' Pepper ^ Socks "Chess ^"'' , ''•Water o '# „Beef <•• Mouse Love . »"
c. -
Trout Boa Apple Sofa . Cactus Cake Mexico Peach • Owl" Soccer 'Poker Opera Rifle Truck Arife Garlic Opal Wrenph P 3 . »' Skirt Rai'n
_ .Rum Bacon
„ Gopher An§er * Year Pea Milk
• Collie Velvet .Yellow Coal^ Fraud Bears Tulip Flu Iron
"fr*
" <>, I 1
V
' 0 %>' ,0c
)l>
(CAR-plum) Time ,
" Gem Metal Animal Dog Cloth Colour .Fuel _ ' Crime Liquor
- Flower Disease Tree Fish" Snake Furniture Plant » Food ^ Country Weapon
' Fruit Sport Weather ^
••„ Music"
-Squirrel Rain Polio Maple Boker Flu Beetle Trout Milk Saw Bus Cactus Poland
. Emerald Rifle Tennis Jazs Python Hawk Silk SoSa Ant, Bridge Pine
Week Ruby Tin Horse Beagle Cotton Purple Butane Theft Whiskey Rose Diabetes Oak Tuna Cobra Desk Weed ^Cheese France
/Bomb / Apple Hockey l
Hail • Classical
* \
Vf, - '
Oil"
V,
«t
*>
"i
•Si
V
•
* f>
of a
* (
< ? * • * "
*. fa
' .1
V
P
SEMANTIC SATIATION ' . Page 77
' * • ' • y Appendix C (List 2) continued
Category name Target Flanlcer
/
b.
Jp
SEMANTIC SATIATION
Appendix C (List 2) continued
Page-7&
V
Category name
(CAR-worm) Time Gem Metal Animal / Dog Cloth Colour Fuel _-' Crime/ Liquor Flower Disease » Bird Vehicle' • Insect -' Tool Vegetable Spice Clothing Game• . . Drinks Meat Rodent ° »Emotio'n N
Target
Lettuce Garlic Shark Second Opal
• Trucks-Vine Gopher' Veal Bear Zinc
. Year ° Collie Coal Yeliox-7 Coat Cake .
, Fraud Pear Gin Daisy Wrench Anger Snow
Flanker
Wasp Beef. Thunder Jeep Mouse Cancer Chisel Willow
_ Guppy Chess Robin • Monopoly < Diamond " Fear Oregano . Coffee Socks- . 'Rat Minute Hamsueij Car Fly Ivy Bean
' 4
^
t>
SEMANTIC SATIATION
Appendix C (List 2) continued •
Category name' Target Flanker
(CAR-truck) Tree Fish Snake Furniture Plant Food Country 4 Weapon Fruit Sport Weather ' Music Bird Vehicle Insect Tool Vegetable Spice Clothing Game Drink Meat Rodent -Emotion «
Mexico Iron , Lion' ; Hound Gas Blue Boa Rice Rape, Peach Rum Tulip Juice Chair Sword « Soccer Owl Velvet Pea Opera Skirt Joy Cloves BacOn
Russia Copper Cow Poodle Oil Red Viper •Bread Murder Plum Scotch Orchid Water. Talkie1' • Gun> Golf Canary Rayon '-Onion Folk Hat Love Pepper Pork
o SEMANTIC SATIATION Page 80
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