An investigation of visual target degradation effect on semantic satiation

Semantic satiation means that prolonged fixation or massive repetition of words make them meaningless. This study examined semantic satiation e#ect in a single-word priming lexical decision task. In this experiment, there were two conditions of visual stimulus quality: degraded condition in which the target was superimposed by slash or greater-than signs; intact condition in which the target was clearly viewed. Visual stimulus quality conditions were a within-participant factor and the conditions were randomly mixed on each trial. Twenty-four college students participated in an experiment and judged whether the target was a real word or a nonword. As a result, the semantic satiation e#ect was found regardless of conditions. Consistent with Shimokido (2004), this study showed that this e#ect is found in a lexical decision task when the semantic information is highly involved. It was suggested that this phenomenon is explained by the following mechanism. Massive prime repetition inhibits accessing units in the semantic system. That inhibition propagates to the lexical system, and then causes the semantic satiation e#ect.