Semantic satiation refers to the attenuation in the meaning of a word that occurs as a result of excessive exposure to the word. Although increased knowledge of semantic satiation would significantly contribute to our understanding of the cognitive architecture in both young and older adults, until recently, there has been relatively little evidence documenting the characteristics of semantic satiation. There are three goals in the proposed dissertation: First, an attempt will be made to determine if the satiation of the representation for one word can also influence the representations for other related words. Second, an attempt will be made to assess the influence of satiation on the ambiguity resolution of words with multiple meanings (homographs). Finally, because of work discussed in the Preliminary Studies section, the present study will follow up on the important observation that older adults are less likely to produce semantic satiation compared to younger adults. Sixty-four young and 64 older-adults will participate in the study. On each of a series of trials, subjects will be visually presented three words. The first word will either be related or unrelated to the second word, which will always be a homograph. The third word will be the target. The first word will be repeated from one to twenty-four times before the homograph and the target is presented. The subject's task will be to make relatedness judgments with regard to the homograph and the target. Previous research indicates that the first word (e.g., MUSIC) biases the interpretation of the homograph (e.g., ORGAN) so that subjects respond fastest when the meaning of a related target word is consistent with the biased interpretation of the homograph (e.g., PIANO), compared to when it is consistent with the alternative interpretation (e.g., HEART). The present paradigm allows one to assess the impact of changing the activation of one meaning of an ambiguous word (via satiation) on the availability of the alternative meaning, and whether there are any age-related changes in this process.
