Semantic Satiation Effect Research Articles

Semantic satiation of emotional words impedes facial expression processing in two stages

To explore the mechanism of emotional words semantic satiation effect on facial expression processing, participants were asked to judge the facial expression (happiness or sadness) after an emotional word (哭(cry) or 笑(smile)) or a neutral word (阿(Ah), baseline condition) was presented for 20 s. The results revealed that participants were slower in judging valence-congruent facial expressions and reported a more enlarged (Experiment 1) and prolonged (Experiment 2) N170 component than the baseline condition. No significant difference in behavior and N170 appeared between the valence-incongruent and the baseline condition. However, the amplitude of LPC (Late Positive Complex) under both valence-congruent/incongruent conditions was smaller than the baseline condition. It indicates that, in the early stage, the impeding effect of satiated emotional words is specifically constrained to facial expressions with the same emotional valence; in the late stage, such an impeding effect might spread to facial expressions with the opposite valence of the satiated emotional word.

The Mechanism of Word Satiation in Tibetan Reading: Evidence from Eye Movements.

Two eye-tracking experiments were used to investigate the mechanism of word satiation in Tibetan reading. The results revealed that, at a low repetition level, gaze duration and total fixation duration in the semantically unrelated condition were significantly longer than in the semantically related condition; at a medium repetition level, reaction time in the semantically related condition was significantly longer than in the semantically unrelated condition; at a high repetition level, the total fixation duration and reaction time in the semantically related condition were significantly longer than in the semantically unrelated condition. However, fixation duration and reaction time showed no significant difference between the similar and dissimilar orthography at any repetition level. These findings imply that there are semantic priming effects in Tibetan reading at a low repetition level, but semantic satiation effects at greater repetition levels, which occur in the late stage of lexical processing.

The role of non-semantic factors in semantic satiation effect in schizophrenia

Background and Objectives: Semantic satiation is defined as the subjective experience of the loss of access to the meanings of words or images caused by prolonged and quick repetitions of the material. Previous researches indicated that the semantic satiation of words and images occurs faster in schizophrenics than in healthy subjects. Individuals suffering from schizophrenia reveal the tendency to lose of access to the meaning of words after fewer words repetition than healthy controls. The aim of the research was to establish whether the semantic satiation of images in schizophrenia is the effect of the loss of meanings of images or is caused by non - semantic factors i.e. fatiguing experimental procedure. Methods: It was assumed that in conditions where the participant�s level of fatigue was parallel to the fatigue observed in the research on semantic satiation and the meaning of satiated images was not required for semantic decisions, schizophrenic patients and healthy controls would not reveal the semantic satiation effect defined as an increase in reaction time. Two groups of participants: patients suffering from schizophrenia (10 women and 10 men, average age 30) and healthy controls (9 female and 9 male, average age 30.7) were shown 80 trails. Each one of them consisted of a satiated image which appeared repeatedly on the computer screen, and a non � satiated image accompanied by a written word, which were shown simultaneously after the final presentation of the satiated image. The participants� task was to decide whether the written word named the object presented on the non � satiated picture correctly. The participants did not make any decisions on the basis of satiated images. Results: The results obtained confirmed the hypothesis. In conditions where participants were shown the images flashing on the computer screen but were not required to make a semantic decision related to those images, their reaction time to subsequently presented stimuli did not lengthen. Conclusions: The results confirmed the hypothesis that the semantic satiation effect in schizophrenia is a semantic phenomenon and is not related to non � semantic factors such as the subjects� fatigue.

Testing semantic satiation effect with lexical ambiguity resolutions

Testing semantic satiation effect with lexical ambiguity resolutions

P-1291 - Semantic satiation of fearful faces in individuals with subclinical forms of delusions

The semantic satiation is defined as a subjective loss of access to the meaning of repeated stimuli. Previous researches revealed that in paranoid schizophrenia this effect occurs faster than in healthy controls, and could be responsible for problems linked with fear recognition. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether the semantic satiation effect could be the possible cognitive mechanism underlying the problems connected with fearful faces recognition in delusion - prone individuals. Two groups of students: individuals with high and low scores on Peters’ Delusion Inventory participated in the study. They were presented with photos of fearful, happy and neutral faces. In control conditions all photos were displayed 3 times, in experimental one - 30 times in order to evoke the effect of the loss of access to the meaning of the images. Participants’ task was to decide if the emotion displayed was named correctly. Within the group of individuals who scored high on the PDI the satiation of fearful faces was greater, than in the control group. Unlike them, individuals who scored low on PDI revealed the greater satiation effect related to happiness. Individuals with subclinical forms of delusions tend to loss the meaning of fear displayed by other people quicker than individuals who are not delusion - prone. The semantic satiation effect could be considered as a possible cause of difficulties in fear perception.

P-1289 - Deficits in facial - affect recognition in schizophrenia. The role of semantic satiation in fear and happiness perception

Individuals suffering from schizophrenia reveal difficulties in the recognition of emotional states experienced by other people. Deficits in facial - affect perception tend to be greater for negative facial displays than the positive one, with impairment being greatest for the perception of fear. The aim of the current study was to investigate the role of semantic satiation of faces in the deficit arising in fear recognition. Semantic satiation is defined as the experience of the loss of the meaning of words or images caused by their prolonged presentation. The satiation effect occurs faster in schizophrenia than in healthy people since it could be considered as a mechanism which reveals patients’ difficulties in fear recognition. Participants, 30 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 30 controls were shown the images of fearful, happy and neutral faces. In satiation conditions each image was displayed 30 times, in control conditions - 3 times. Participants’ task was to define the emotion they were presented with. Both groups of participants revealed the semantic satiation effect alike for positive, negative and neutral faces. Within the group of patients the satiation effect was greater for fearful and neutral faces than for positive ones, whereas for the healthy controls the satiation of positive and negative pictures were greater than for the neutral ones. Within the schizophrenic group semantic satiation could be considered as a mechanism which is responsible for the difficulties of fear recognition and for deficits of correct interpretation of emotionally - neutral faces.

語の多義性とその解消を手がかりとした意味飽和効果の検討

語の多義性とその解消を手がかりとした意味飽和効果の検討

P03-313 - Empty words in schizophrenia. Semantic satiation as the mechanism of formal language disorders

The aim of the research was to explain the cognitive mechanisms responsible for formal language disorders in schizophrenia by relating them to the semantic satiation effect.The semantic satiation is the subjective and temporary experience of loss of meaning of words which are repeatedly and rapidly pronounced. Saying it aloud or fixating it the person ceases to understand the word's meaning still being able to recognizing its formal features. The loss of access to the meaning of words and building the utterances on the basis of formal aspects of words is a common feature of schizophrenic language. Therefore it could be assumed that schizophrenic patients would be prone to satiation effect more than healthy subjects.Semantic satiation was determined for patients suffering from schizophrenia and for healthy controls. Participants task was to compare the meanings of two words presented on a computer screen and decide if they are semantically related. Negative, positive and emotionally neutral words were used as the first element for each pair and they were satiated by the prolonged presentation. It was expected that the loss of meaning of satiated word would delay participants’ lexical decision and that this effect should be stronger for the schizophrenic than for control group.The results confirmed that people suffering from schizophrenia are more susceptible for semantic satiation effect. Also it was observed that in this group the satiation effect depends on valence of words. Emotionally positive and negative words were satiated faster than neutral ones.

概念処理における意味飽和効果

This study examined whether semantic satiation effects for a picture exemplar differ from a word exemplar. If massive repetition of the category name leads to an inhibition of conceptual processing, then semantic satiation effects would be found in both the word and picture exemplar conditions. However, if the repetition leads to an inhibition of lexical processing, then effects would be found for the word exemplar but not the picture exemplar. To examine these hypotheses, 48 college students were asked to judge whether a target pair of exemplars belonged to the same named category. The results showed that semantic satiation effects were found equally in both exemplar conditions. Moreover, the picture-superiority effect was intact regardless of the prime repetitions. The possibility was discussed that word and picture exemplars are integrated into an abstract and amodal conceptual unit; hence category judgment was affected by the satiation effect.

カテゴリー判断課題におけるフランカー刺激が意味飽和効果に及ぼす影響

This study examined semantic satiation in a flanked-category verification task. In the experiment, a target pair (FRUIT grape) was flanked by a distractor (i.e., flanker). There were three conditions; compatible condition in which flankers were semantically related to a target category word (FRUIT grape vs. apple), incompatible condition in which flankers were not related (FRUIT grape vs. coffee), baseline condition in which flankers were not presented. Seventy-three college students participated in the experiment and judged whether or not a instance word was related to a category word in the target pair. As a result, the semantic satiation effect was found regardless of flanker conditions. Additionally, the influence of flanker was not attenuated by prime repetitions. These results were elucidated in terms of decision criterion based on a semantic relatedness of prime and target instance words. A possibility indicated that the locus of decision criteria was shifted to a more careful one by prolonged prime repetitions. Finally, one explanation was discussed that an influence of satiation would be emerged from the process which suited semantic information to the context.

Semantic satiation effect in young and older adults.

Auditory and auditory+visual massed repetition served to examine semantic satiation in young and older adults and to understand the possible sources of this phenomenon. In Exp. 1, participants either heard or heard and saw prime words (ROYALTY) repeated 2, 15, or 30 times and made relatedness judgments on targets that were either semantically related (queen) or unrelated (box) to the repeated word. To distinguish satiation from general boredom, semantic satiation was operationally defined as a repetition-induced change in the difference between related and unrelated pairs (relatedness effect). Auditory massed repetition, either alone or in conjunction with prolonged visual exposure, produced semantic satiation effects in both young and older adults. In Exp. 2, participants heard the prime words of the earlier experiment, each repeated 30 times and reported perceptual changes (verbal transformations) during the repetition treatment. In this experiment, older adults were less susceptible to this type of habituation. The discussion focuses on the mechanisms that may be responsible for producing semantic satiation effects in young and older adults with different forms of massed repetition.

The effect of semantic satiation on a double lexical decision task

It is known that a semantic satiation effect depends upon the characteristics of the task. For example, the effect has been found on a category decision task, but not found on a lexical decision task. Based on these results, previous studies concluded that because the task is influenced from factors other than semantic access, the lexical decision task was inadequate for semantic satiation. On the contrary, this study found the effect on a variation of a lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, 16 college students performed a category-matching judgement. In Experiment II, 24 students performed a lexical decision on a pair of letter strings. The results of both experiments showed the semantic satiation. These results suggested that a lexical decision task was able to detect the satiation as long as the task was complicated.

On the locus of the semantic satiation effect: evidence from event-related brain potentials.

The present study sought to determine whether semantic satiation is merely a by-product of adaptation or satiation of upstream, nonsemantic perceptual processes or whether the effect can have a locus in semantic memory. This was done by measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in a semantic word-detection task involving multiple presentations of primes and critical related and unrelated words in three experiments involving visual (Experiment 1) and auditory (Experiments 2A and 2B) stimuli. Primes varied in their type case (Experiment 1) or pitch (Experiment 2B) in order to discourage sensory adaptation. Prime satiation and relatedness of the primes to the critical word had interacting effects on ERP amplitude to critical words, particularly within the time-window of the N400 component. Because numerous studies have indicated a role for the N400 in semantic processing, modulation of the N400 relatedness effect by prime satiation (with little or no contribution from perceptual adaptation) suggests that semantic memory can be directly satiated, rather than the cost to semantic processing necessarily resulting from impoverishment of perceptual inputs.

Semantic satiation in healthy young and older adults.

In four experiments, semantic satiation was investigated in young and old adults. In the first two experiments, subjects were repeatedly presented a word (e.g., DOG) and then were presented a pair of words (e.g., DOG-CAT or DOG-CHAIR) for a relatedness decision. The results of both experiments indicated that for the young adults, the relatedness effect (the difference between response latency on related and unrelated trials) decreased as a function of the number of times the satiated word was repeated, whereas for the older adults, there was no evidence of a decrease in the relatedness effect across repetitions of the satiated word. In the third experiment, we investigated whether phonological codes are also susceptible to satiation. This experiment was similar to the first two experiments with the exception that subjects made rhyme decisions (SAME-CLAIM VS. SAME-DIME) instead of semantic relatedness decisions. The results of this experiment did not yield any evidence of satiation for either the young adults or the older adults. The final experiment eliminated a simple decrease in attentional alertness or fatigue account of the semantic satiation effects found in the first two experiments. In this experiment, the repeated word was always unrelated to the pair of words presented for the relatedness decision. The results of this experiment did not yield any evidence of semantic satiation for either the young or the older adults. The discussion focuses on the mechanisms underlying semantic satiation and the implications of age-related changes in these mechanisms.

The locus of semantic satiation in category membership decision and acceptability judgment

The locus of semantic satiation was investigated in three experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2 subjects performed a category membership decision task following the repetition (3 or 30 times) of the category name. In order to distinguish the effect of semantic satiation from the possible effect of repetition on the identification of the member word, two measures were recorded, namely (a) the member word reading time and (b) response time. A semantic satiation effect was observed on response times in Experiment 1. No satiation effect was observed, however, when, instead of repeating a single word, the subject had to repeat several words corresponding to a category definition. A facilitation effect due to repetition was observed instead (Experiment 2). An inhibition effect was observed again in Experiment 3 with an acceptability judgment task performed on a short sentence. This pattern of results is consistent with the general hypothesis that semantic satiation is linked to the processes involved in accessing the meaning of the repeated word after the repetition is completed.

The effect of worry on cardiovascular response to phobic imagery

Cardiovascular response to phobic exposures has been shown to reflect the degree of emotional processing of phobic material and relates in important ways to outcome in exposure therapy. The present study investigated the effect of worry on such processing. Speech anxious subjects visualized a phobic scene for 10 trials. Three groups differed according to whether they engaged in relaxed, neutral, or worrisome thinking just prior to each scene presentation. Although the three types of thinking had no effect on cardiovascular activity during the thinking periods, subjects in the worry group displayed significantly less heart rate response to the phobic image than those in the neutral condition who had significantly less response than the relaxed condition. However, the worry group showed significantly greater subjective fear to the images than the neutral condition, with the relaxed group near to the level of the worry group and not significantly different from either of the other two conditions. The results suggest that worry may inhibit emotional processing and thus preserve cognitive/affective fear structure, and are discussed in terms of Gray's ( Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5, 469–534, 1982) theory of the behavioral inhibition system and semantic satiation effects in cognitive psychology.

Instructional effects on semantic satiation

Relatively small satiation effects were found in a study of the effects of instructional variables on semantic satiation. The largest satiation effects were produced when Ss were instructed to consider word meanings during repetition of words, and in addition rated words on semantic differential scales on which the mid-point was defined as indicating “meaninglessness” as well as “neutrality of irrelevancy.” It was concluded that semantic satiation effects may be difficult to obtain without the use of such instructions when the semantic differential is employed to measure meaning loss following verbal repetition.

Semantic satiation in concept formation.

This study deals with generalization of the semantic satiation effect to a concept formation task which involves the grouping of words into classes. Experimental Ss were given satiation treatment on words which were thought to mediate solution to the classification task, while control Ss were given satiation treatment on irrelevant words. It was shown that experimental Ss differed from controls with respect to the type of solutions given in the concept formation task.