Semantic satiation - wikipedia Semantic satiation Semantic satiation ( also semantic saturation ) is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds. Contents 1 History and research 2 Applications 3 In popular culture 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading History and Research Leon Jakobovits James coined the phrase `` semantic satiation '' in his 1962 doctoral dissertation at McGill University. Prior to that, the expression `` verbal satiation '' had been used along with terms that express the idea of mental fatigue. The dissertation listed many of the names others had used for the phenomenon : Many other names have been used for what appears to be essentially the same process : inhibition ( Herbert, 1824, in Boring, 1950 ), refractory phase and mental fatigue ( Dodge, 1917 ; 1926a ), lapse of meaning ( Bassett and Warne, 1919 ), work decrement ( Robinson and Bills, 1926 ), cortical inhibition ( Pavlov, 192 ? ), adaptation ( Gibson, 1937 ), extinction ( Hilgard and Marquis, 1940 ), satiation ( Kohler and Wallach, 1940 ), reactive inhibition ( Hull, 1913 ( sic ) ), stimulus satiation ( Glanzer, 1953 ), reminiscence ( Eysenck, 1956 ), verbal satiation ( Smith and Raygor, 1956 ), and verbal transformation ( Warren, 1961b ). -- From Leon Jakobovits James, 1962 The dissertation presents several experiments that demonstrate the operation of the semantic satiation effect in various cognitive tasks such as rating words and figures that are presented repeatedly in a short time, verbally repeating words then grouping them into concepts, adding numbers after repeating them out loud, and bilingual translations of words repeated in one of the two languages. In each case subjects would repeat a word or number for several seconds, then perform the cognitive task using that word. It was demonstrated that repeating a word prior to its use in a task made the task somewhat more difficult. The explanation for the phenomenon is that, in the cortex, verbal repetition repeatedly arouses a specific neural pattern that corresponds to the meaning of the word. Rapid repetition makes both the peripheral sensorimotor activity and central neural activation fire repeatedly. This is known to cause reactive inhibition, hence a reduction in the intensity of the activity with each repetition. Jakobovits James ( 1962 ) calls this conclusion the beginning of `` experimental neurosemantics ''. Applications An application has been developed to reduce speech anxiety by stutterers by creating semantic satiation through repetition, thus reducing the intensity of negative emotions triggered during speech. In popular culture In Edgar Allan Poe 's 1835 short story Berenice, the protagonist describes a mental state that induced him `` to repeat, monotonously, some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind ''. In James Thurber 's 1933 short story `` More Alarms At Night '', Thurber describes the phenomenon as follows : `` I began to indulge in the wildest fancies as I lay there in the dark, such as that there was no such town, and even that there was no such state as New Jersey. I fell to repeating the word ' Jersey ' over and over again, until it became idiotic and meaningless. If you have ever lain awake at night and repeated one word over and over, thousands and millions and hundreds of thousands of millions of times, you know the disturbing mental state you can get into. '' In the Friends episode `` The One with the Stoned Guy '', the character referenced in the title repeats the word `` tartlets '' until he notes that it has `` lost all meaning ''. Semantic satiation is used extensively in Tony Burgess 's novel Pontypool Changes Everything, as well as in the film adaptation of the novel. In William Faulkner 's novel As I Lay Dying, the character of Addie Bundren speaks of the phenomenon as repeating a word until the meaning drains from it, leaving it an empty container. In Kathryn Lasky 's book Guardians of Ga'Hoole, one of the brainwashing techniques the antagonists use against young owls is making them repeat their own name until it loses all meaning to them. In The Simpsons episode `` Radioactive Man '', Milhouse Van Houten tells Bart Simpson that `` making movies is so horribly repetitive ; I 've said ' jiminy jillikers ! ' so many times the words have lost all meaning ! ' '' See also Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Gestaltzerfall Jamais vu Mantra References Jump up ^ Leon Jakobovits James ( April 1962 ). `` Effects of Repeated Stimulation on Cognitive Aspects of Behavior : Some Experiments on the Phenomenon of Semantic Satiation ''. Retrieved 2018 - 08 - 13. Jump up ^ Dr. Leon James ( formerly Leon A. Jakobovits ) University of Illinois. `` SEMANTIC SATIATION AND COGNITIVE DYNAMICS1 ''. Jump up ^ `` Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe ''. Online-literature.com. 2007 - 01 - 26. Retrieved 2012 - 08 - 17. Jump up ^ James Thurber ( August 26, 1933 ). `` MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES - V : MORE ALARMS AT NIGHT ''. The New Yorker. Jump up ^ Memorable quotes for `` Friends '' The One with the Stoned Guy ( 1995 ), IMDB.com Jump up ^ `` ( 2F17 ) Radioactive Man ''. Archived from the original on January 20, 2015. Further reading This article 's further reading may not follow Wikipedia 's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing less relevant or redundant publications with the same point of view ; or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations. ( January 2015 ) Dodge, R. ( 1917 ). `` The laws of relative fatigue ''. Psychol. Rev. 24 ( 2 ) : 89 -- 113. doi : 10.1037 / h0075549. Don, V.J. ; Weld, H.P. ( 1924 ). `` Lapse of meaning with visual fixation ''. American Journal of Psychology. 35 ( 3 ) : 446 -- 450. doi : 10.2307 / 1414024. JSTOR 1414024. Duncan, C.P. ( 1956 ). `` On the similarity between reactive inhibition and neural satiation ''. American Journal of Psychology. 69 ( 2 ) : 227 -- 235. doi : 10.2307 / 1418151. JSTOR 1418151. PMID 13327083. Eysenck, H.J. ( 1955 ). `` Cortical inhibition, figural after - effect, and theory of personality ''. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 51 ( 1 ) : 94 -- 106. doi : 10.1037 / h0043564. PMID 13242293. Gaynor, Miriam ( 1954 ). `` An effect of satiation on recall ''. New York : New School for Social Research Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation. Severance, Elisabeth ; Washburn, Margaret. ( 1907 ). `` The loss of associative power in words after long fixation ''. American Journal of Psychology. 18 ( 2 ) : 182 -- 186. doi : 10.2307 / 1412411. JSTOR 1412411. Smith, D.E.P. ; Raygor, A.L. ( 1956 ). `` Verbal satiation and personality ''. J. Abnrom, soc. Psychol. 52 ( 3 ) : 323 -- 326. PMID 13318837. Warren, R.M ( 1961 ). `` Illusory changes in repeated words : Differences between young adults and the aged ''. American Journal of Psychology. 74 ( 4 ) : 506 -- 516. doi : 10.2307 / 1419661. JSTOR 1419661. PMID 14005061. Warren, R.M. ( 1961 ). `` Illusory changes of distinct speech upon repetition -- the verbal transformation effect ''. Br. J. Psychol. 52 ( 3 ) : 249 -- 258. doi : 10.1111 / j. 2044 - 8295.1961. tb00787. x. PMID 13783239. Wertheimer, M. ( 1960 ). F. Weinhandl, ed. `` Studies of some Gestalt qualities of words ''. In Gestalthaftes sehen : Ergebnisse und Aufgaben der Morphologie. Darmstadt, Germany : Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Wertheimer, M. ( 1958 ). `` The relation between the sound of a word and its meaning ''. American Journal of Psychology. 71 ( 2 ) : 412 -- 415. doi : 10.2307 / 1420089. JSTOR 1420089. Lambert, W.E. ; Jakobovits, L.A. ( 1960 ). `` Verbal satiation and changes in the intensity of meaning ''. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 60 ( 6 ) : 376 -- 83. doi : 10.1037 / h0045624. PMID 13758466. Jakobovits, L.A. ; Lambert, W.E. ( 1961 ). `` Semantic satiation among bilinguals ''. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 62 ( 6 ) : 576 -- 82. doi : 10.1037 / h0042860. PMID 14450947. Jakobovits, L.A. ; Lambert, W.E. ( 1962 ). `` Semantic satiation in an addition task ''. Canadian Journal of Psychology. 16 ( 2 ) : 112 -- 19. doi : 10.1037 / h0083238. Jakobovits, L.A. ; Lambert, W.E. ( 1962 ). `` Mediated satiation in verbal transfer ''. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 64 : 346 -- 51. doi : 10.1037 / h0044630. PMID 14450946. Jakobovits, L.A. ; Lambert, W.E. ( 1963 ). L. Arons ; M.A. May, eds. The effects of repetition in communication on meanings and attitudes. Television and Human Behavior. New York : Appleton - Century - Crofts. pp. 167 -- 76 Messer, S., Jakobovits, L.A., Kanungo, R., and Lambert, W.E. ( 1964 ). `` Semantic satiation of words and numbers ''. British Journal of Psychology. 55 : 155 -- 63. doi : 10.1111 / j. 2044 - 8295.1964. tb02715. x. PMID 14168480. CS1 maint : Multiple names : authors list ( link ) Jakobovits, L.A. ; Lambert, W.E. ( 1964 ). `` Stimulus - characteristics as determinants of semantic changes with repeated presentation ''. American Journal of Psychology. 77 ( 1 ) : 84 -- 92. doi : 10.2307 / 1419274. JSTOR 1419274. PMID 14133230. Jakobovits, L.A. ( 1965 ). `` Semantic satiation in concept formation ''. Psychological Reports. 17 ( 1 ) : 113 -- 14. doi : 10.2466 / pr0. 1965.17. 1.113. PMID 5826453. Jakobovits, L.A. ( 1965 ). `` Repetition of auditorily presented information ''. Psychological Reports. 17 ( 3 ) : 785 -- 86. doi : 10.2466 / pr0. 1965.17. 3.785. PMID 5854255. Jakobovits, L.A. ( 1966 ). `` Utilization of semantic satiation in stuttering : A theoretical analysis ''. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders. 31 ( 2 ) : 105 -- 114. doi : 10.1044 / jshd. 3102.105. PMID 5327594. Jakobovits, L.A. ( 1966 ). `` Studies of fads : I. The ' Hit Parade. ' ''. Psychological Reports. 18 ( 2 ) : 443 -- 50. doi : 10.2466 / pr0. 1966.18. 2.443. Jakobovits, L.A. ( 1967 ). `` Semantic satiation and cognitive dynamics ''. Journal of Special Education. 2 ( 1 ) : 35 -- 44. doi : 10.1177 / 002246696700200103. Jakobovits, L.A. ; Hogenraad, Robert. ( 1967 ). `` Some suggestive evidence on the operation of semantic generation and satiation in group discussions ''. Psychological Reports. 20 ( 3 ) : 1247 -- 1250. doi : 10.2466 / pr0. 1967.20. 3c. 1247. Jakobovits, L.A. ( 1967 ). `` Words, words, words ''. In L. Kuppuswami, Modern Trends in Psychology. Bombay : Manaktala & Sons Jakobovits, L.A. ; Lambert, W.E. ( 1967 ). `` A note on the measurement of semantic satiation ''. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 6 ( 6 ) : 954 -- 57. doi : 10.1016 / s0022 - 5371 ( 67 ) 80165 - 8. Jakobovits, L.A. ; Hogenraad, Robert ( 1968 ). `` Le phénomène de la satiation semantique ''. Bulletin de Psychologie. 22 : 140 -- 9. John Kounios ; Sonja I. Kotz ; Phillip J. Holcomb ( 2000 ). `` On the Locus of the Semantic Satiation Effect : Evidence from Event - Related Brain Potentials ''. Memory & Cognition. 28 : 1366. doi : 10.3758 / BF03211837. Archived from the original on January 25, 2001. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Semantic_satiation&oldid=854766009 '' Categories : Psycholinguistics Semantics Hidden categories : All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from February 2017 Wikipedia spam cleanup from January 2015 Wikipedia further reading cleanup Articles with inconsistent citation formats CS1 maint : Multiple names : authors list All articles with dead external links Articles with dead external links from May 2018 Articles with permanently dead external links Talk Contents About Wikipedia Afrikaans Deutsch Español Français עברית Magyar Nederlands Norsk Polski Русский Українська 中文 5 more Edit links This page was last edited on 13 August 2018, at 16 : 39 ( UTC ). About Wikipedia

Question: when you repeat a word too many times
Answer: Semantic satiation