Semantic satiation affects category membership decision time but not lexical priming

The results support the hypothesis that prolonged repetition of a word reduces the availability of semantic information related to that word and decrease the rate of search and associative spread of activation in conceptual structures.

Abstract

Experiments 1 and 2 examined the effects of semantic satiation on category membership decision latency. Subjects overtly repeated the name of a category either 3 or 30 times, and then decided whether or not a target exemplar was a member of the repeated category. Experiment 1 obtained some evidence that member decisions are slower and nonmember decisions are faster following 30 repetitions, but only the interaction was reliable. Experiment 2 confirmed only that member decisions are slower following satiation of the category name. The results support the hypothesis that prolonged repetition of a word reduces the availability of semantic information related to that word. Experiment 3 showed that the magnitude of priming in the lexical decision task is unaffected by satiation of the prime. Several general approaches to understanding semantic satiation are discussed. The most parsimonious account assumes that satiation affects the links or pathways connecting concepts in the satiated category. The net effect is to decrease the rate of search and associative spread of activation in conceptual structures.