重複的唸一個字還是重複的讀一個字有可能會抑制(impair)意義提取 (meaning retrieval)引發時間很短的義遺忘(loss of meaning)。在西方文獻這個現象稱為「語意饜足」(semantic satiation)。Smith and Klein(1990)藉由一個採取類別比對作業(category matching task)發現語意饜足的本性是語意的。根據漢字文詞彙辨識的研究文發現，長時間注視一個字會引發主觀感受的「文字解體」(orthographic decomposition/satiation)：受試者漸漸懷疑字組成的現象。(Chen & Wu, 1994)強調文字解體主要是字形的解體現象不是語意的現象。(Chen & Wu, 1994)假定在漢字詞彙辨識沒有語意饜足的現象只有文字解體。 故本研究藉由一個採取類別比對連續(continuous)作業試圖探討中文複合字(Chinese compound words)的類別語意饜足現象(categorical semantic satiation)。
實驗一使用重複的一個類別詞(category word)引發語意饜足。受試者一題又一題判斷一個正例(exemplar)是否屬於一個類別詞。實驗2a使用同一個類別的不同的正例詞引發語意饜足。受試者判斷兩個正例是否屬於同一個類別。實驗2b重複檢驗實驗2a語意饜足的發現。實驗3使用一個word-form判斷作業和同一個類別詞引發語意饜足。受試者判斷兩個類別詞是不是同一個詞。綜合四個實驗之結果，研究者推論漢字的語意饜足現象是一個真正的語意歷程不是字形的解體現象。
實驗4使用英文成功地重複檢驗實驗2a語意饜足的發現。實驗5使用中英文成功地重複檢驗實驗2a語意饜足的發現。實驗5證明cross-language語意饜足的存在。本研究的最後部分描述一些意饜足的的認知語模擬。本研究的結果強調重複的處理類別詞的類別語意引發語意饜足。

The subjective reports collected by experimental psychologists for almost one century (Severance & Washburn, 1907; Moulin, 2006) mention a lapse or a loss of the meaning of a word following its massive repetition either as its prolonged viewing - e.g. 1 min - or its active repetition - (oral or written) - for 30 times. This experienced loss of meaning has been coined semantic satiation (Jakobovits, 1962). The term semantic satiation emphasizes that the locus of satiation is thought to be semantic. However, the existence of this semantic locus remains unproven experimentally. In the present work, we use the term verbal satiation instead of semantic satiation until the locus of satiation has been clearly identified. Verbal satiation is different from the verbal transformation effect (Warren, 1974) because it can be induced simply through passive visual exposure of a repeatedly viewed word without stimulation of the auditory modality. Verbal satiation elicited by the repetitive viewing of a word is not a mere habituation of visual neuronal units: in verbal satiation, the form of a word does not necessarily disappear from sight but its meaning does disappear from awareness.
We focus on verbal satiation of categorical meaning. Firstly, verbal satiation of Chinese disyllabic words is studied in three experiments to ascertain the phenomenon, to track its time course, and to identify its locus. We adapt for Chinese the speeded matching-category task described in (Tian & Huber, 2010) by mainly doubling the size of the experimental block. Experiment 1 asked the participants to judge if an exemplar word matched a category word in 22 blocks of 40 trials each. Within a block, one category word appeared 20 times (repeated trials) while each word of the remaining 10 categories appeared only twice (baseline trials). For the first six trials, response times (RTs) for the repeated trials were similar to RTs for the baseline trials. For the subsequent trials, repeated RTs were slower (by 12 ms) than baseline RTs, indicating a satiation effect. Its loci could be orthographic, semantic, or both, or on the associative links between form and meaning. In Experiment 2a, participants judged if two exemplar words belonged to the same category, but the category word was not shown. Repeated RTs were faster (by 6 ms) than baseline RTs for the first 12 trials. Then, verbal satiation emerged and was of similar magnitude (13 ms) as that observed in Experiment 1. Experiment 2b replicated Experiment 2a successfully. The satiation effect must be semantic, as only categorical meanings were repeated. Experiment 3 asked participants to judge if two category words were identical, mostly an orthographic task. Repeated RTs were faster than baseline RTs across trials, suggesting no orthographic satiation. The results indicate that verbal satiation of Chinese words can be directly semantic (categorical). Its time course conforms to the habituation model of Rankin, et al. (2009) as well as to the neuro-computational simulations of Gotts (2003), i.e., sensitization (semantic priming) followed by habituation (semantic satiation).
Experiments 4 and 5 aimed at replicating the previous results of Experiment 2a respectively for English and across English and Chinese. In Experiment 4, verbal satiation is demonstrated in English with native English speakers, demonstrating the language independent nature of verbal satiation. Experiment 5 showed that cross-language satiation is possible between English and Chinese for Taiwanese participants. The time course of bilingual verbal satiation is similar to the one of monolingual verbal satiation. In the last part of the thesis, we modeled and simulated simply the time course of verbal satiation in Experiment 2a using as a core concept a recurrent neuron unit with excitatory feedback connection. The model acts with a memory of the eight previous exemplars to operate novelty and redundancy detection and to induce sensitization or habituation of the response of the repeated categorical meaning neuron unit. This model accounted for the reversal of semantic priming into semantic satiation, and even captured the total recovery from semantic satiation at the end of the block. We concluded by exposing implications of the work for broader theories of cognition and by listing future research directions. We also finally and tentatively forecast the future of verbal satiation as a promising experimental paradigm.

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