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Verbal transformation: habituation or spreading activation?
1City University, London, United Kingdom.
Brain and Language
|March 16, 2000
Summary
The Verbal Transformation Effect, where repeating words change perception, is not explained by habituation. Instead, a dual-process model involving cognitive activation explains this auditory illusion.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Auditory Perception
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- The Verbal Transformation Effect (VTE) is an auditory illusion where a repeated verbal stimulus perceptually transforms.
- Previous explanations have focused on habituation as a potential mechanism for the VTE.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test the habituation hypothesis of the VTE.
- To investigate alternative explanations for the VTE, particularly those involving cognitive processes.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1 manipulated stimulus dimensions (imagery value, word length) to assess their effect on habituation and transformations.
- Experiment 2 examined the influence of activated semantic representations of homophones on transformations, keeping the physical stimulus invariant.
Main Results:
- In Experiment 1, increased imagery value and word length led to more transformations, contradicting the habituation hypothesis.
- Experiment 2 demonstrated that transformations varied with the number of activated semantic representations, supporting a spreading activation model.
Conclusions:
- The habituation hypothesis does not adequately explain the Verbal Transformation Effect.
- A dual-process model, incorporating spreading activation between cognitive representations, provides a better explanation for the VTE, especially concerning homophone stimuli.