[The effect of target degradation on detection of semantic satiation in a lexical decision task]

In this study, it was examined whether or not visual quality of letter strings influenced the detection of semantic satiation in a lexical decision task. Previous studies concluded that lexical decision tasks cannot detect semantic satiation, because semantic information was not fully utilized in this task. Recently, however, it has been shown that semantic satiation is detected in this task as long as semantic information of the target was fully utilized. This study examined whether or not semantic satiation in the lexical decision task is found when a visually degraded target was presented. Forty-eight college students participated in the experiment. Semantic satiation was found in the degraded target condition, but not found in the intact target condition, which was consistent with the previous studies. These results suggest that this effect in the lexical decision task is found only if the target is degraded, and semantic information of the target is available for the decision.