<p>The accepted answer by @krysta may not be the full story: it depends on the way words are repeated. </p>

<p>I understand from @tsykora's question that words are repeated without a separation (syllables are produced at a fixed pace). Kounios et al. used spoken words (mean length of 544 milliseconds) that were repeated several times at a fixed interval of 800 milliseconds. This means that blanks (no sound) separated each presentation of a word.</p>

<p>The blank period between words is of importance since repeated words in a blank context may not "sound very weird" (words are clearly, physically, separable) but only loose their meaning. In a no-blank context (continuous speech), both meaning and percept change. An auditory example can be found in the "ILLUSORY CHANGES OF REPEATED WORDS: THE VERBAL TRANSFORMATION EFFECT" section (<a href="http://www4.uwm.edu/APL/demonstrations.html">http://www4.uwm.edu/APL/demonstrations.html</a>). For instance, while listening to repetitions of the word "rest", listeners are likely to switch between perceiving it as a repetition of "rest" and "tress" or "stress" (Warren &amp; Gregory, 1958). </p>

<p>The verbal transformation effect originates in a multistable representation of a speech form. Pitt and Shoaf (2002) argues that one possible cause is the perceptual regrouping of the acoustic elements that make up a word. It involves some top-down processes in the perceptual organization of speech. A visual analogue of such illusion is found in the Necker cube where the percept changes according to where the eyes land (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necker_cube">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necker_cube</a>).</p>

<p>Such acoustic phenomenon makes me think of a statistical learning in language acquisition in children. It has been shown by Saffran and colleagues that a child can learn to segment a continuous speech into distinct words using transitional probabilities between syllables. In the context of repeated words, a word boundary is first placed between "ted-re" of "re-pea-ted-re-pea-ted" because "ted-re" is not frequent in English while the two other transitions are frequent. Going further in the auditory sequence, repetitive presentation of an utterance promotes alternative groupings of the acoustic elements because the elements occur at regular, predictable points in time (Bregman, 1990). Here, repeating a word at a fixed syllable pace abolishes the frequency of the syllable transitions (the frequencies are momentarily all equal) so that "pi-a-no-pi-a-no" is sometimes heard as "piano" and sometimes "anopi". </p>

<p><strong>Ref.</strong></p>

<p>Bregman, 1990. Auditory scene analysis: The perceptual organization of sound.</p>

<p>Kounios et al., 2000. Memory &amp; Cognition ; <a href="http://www.psychonomic.org/pubmed/mc/mc-28-1366.pdf">http://www.psychonomic.org/pubmed/mc/mc-28-1366.pdf</a></p>

<p>Pitt and Shoaf, 2002. JEP:HPP ; <a href="http://lpl.psy.ohio-state.edu/documents/PittShoafVTE-17_000.pdf">http://lpl.psy.ohio-state.edu/documents/PittShoafVTE-17_000.pdf</a></p>

<p>Warren &amp; Gregory, 1958. An auditory analogue of the visual reversible ﬁgure, American Journal of Psychology.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-13T08:05:31.487Z
Thanks for taking the time to answer.  We do encourage references in answers, so if you can find even peripherally related evidence for your claim, it would make a stronger case for this.
Chuck Sherrington
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-16T12:50:33.823Z
I added some references, formatted the text for a clearer presentation, and smoothed out the first version for a more fluent reading. Thanks for the encouragements!
marsei
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-16T17:24:40.723Z
Great additional information!
Krysta
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-13T00:23:35.690Z
2013-07-16T12:46:54.933Z
2013-07-16T12:46:54.933Z
marsei
<p>This is called semantic saturation, or semantic satiation; studies of event-related potentials (brain waves) suggest that it is negatively correlated with N400 amplitude (the subjective experience of satiation increases as the N400 amplitude decreases) without any change to upstream sensory components.  As N400 amplitude indexes initial lexical integration--that is, understanding the word at hand in relation to the words that preceded it--this sugggests that semantic satiation is in fact due to some kind of habituation in the semantic processes, and not in upstream sensory processing.</p>

<p>Citations: 
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia on Semantic saturation</a></p>

<p><a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03211837" rel="nofollow">Kounios, J., Kotz, S. A., &amp; Holcomb, P. J. (2000). On the locus of the semantic satiation effect: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Memory &amp; cognition, 28(8), 1366-1377.</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-09T21:48:18.817Z
That's exactly it! Thank you :)
tsykora
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-10T20:57:57.467Z
you're welcome! glad you found it helpful.
Krysta
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-09T16:30:52.603Z
2015-10-27T17:58:42.053Z
2015-10-27T17:58:42.053Z
Krysta
<p>This effect seems to be observed with almost any word. I would say this phenomenon 'works' for longer and complex words better.</p>

<p>When we repeat a word over and over again, it starts to sound very weird and become only a bunch of repeating sounds. You don't even need to repeat it quickly.</p>

<p>Why does a word repeated many times lose its meaning and the brain can't recognize it properly any more? </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-09T14:17:54.763Z
speculative: words only have meaning holistically and in context, if you reduce them they're just sounds.  The more you say a word over and over, the more I think you lose context about it and your brain starts to focus on the reductionist aspects of it.  Brains get bored with repetitive stimulus so reinterpreting a persistent stimulus might do something to avoid that boredom.
Keegan Keplinger
<cognitive-psychology><language>
Why does repeating one word over and over again sound weird to us after some time?
tsykora
# Why does repeating one word over and over again sound weird to us after some time?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-07-09)

This effect seems to be observed with almost any word. I would say this phenomenon 'works' for longer and complex words better.

When we repeat a word over and over again, it starts to sound very weird and become only a bunch of repeating sounds. You don't even need to repeat it quickly.

Why does a word repeated many times lose its meaning and the brain can't recognize it properly any more?

**Tags:** cognitive-psychology, language

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: speculative: words only have meaning holistically and in context, if you reduce them they're just sounds.  The more you say a word over and over, the more I think you lose context about it and your brain starts to focus on the reductionist aspects of it.  Brains get bored with repetitive stimulus so reinterpreting a persistent stimulus might do something to avoid that boredom.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2013-07-09. Score: 14 | Accepted answer

This is called semantic saturation, or semantic satiation; studies of event-related potentials (brain waves) suggest that it is negatively correlated with N400 amplitude (the subjective experience of satiation increases as the N400 amplitude decreases) without any change to upstream sensory components. As N400 amplitude indexes initial lexical integration--that is, understanding the word at hand in relation to the words that preceded it--this sugggests that semantic satiation is in fact due to some kind of habituation in the semantic processes, and not in upstream sensory processing.

Citations:
[Wikipedia on Semantic saturation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation)

[Kounios, J., Kotz, S. A., & Holcomb, P. J. (2000). On the locus of the semantic satiation effect: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Memory & cognition, 28(8), 1366-1377.](http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03211837)

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: That's exactly it! Thank you :)  
> **username_4**: you're welcome! glad you found it helpful.  

---

### Answer by username_2 on 2013-07-13. Score: 7

The accepted answer by @krysta may not be the full story: it depends on the way words are repeated.

I understand from @username_0's question that words are repeated without a separation (syllables are produced at a fixed pace). Kounios et al. used spoken words (mean length of 544 milliseconds) that were repeated several times at a fixed interval of 800 milliseconds. This means that blanks (no sound) separated each presentation of a word.

The blank period between words is of importance since repeated words in a blank context may not "sound very weird" (words are clearly, physically, separable) but only loose their meaning. In a no-blank context (continuous speech), both meaning and percept change. An auditory example can be found in the "ILLUSORY CHANGES OF REPEATED WORDS: THE VERBAL TRANSFORMATION EFFECT" section (<http://www4.uwm.edu/APL/demonstrations.html>). For instance, while listening to repetitions of the word "rest", listeners are likely to switch between perceiving it as a repetition of "rest" and "tress" or "stress" (Warren & Gregory, 1958).

The verbal transformation effect originates in a multistable representation of a speech form. Pitt and Shoaf (2002) argues that one possible cause is the perceptual regrouping of the acoustic elements that make up a word. It involves some top-down processes in the perceptual organization of speech. A visual analogue of such illusion is found in the Necker cube where the percept changes according to where the eyes land (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necker_cube>).

Such acoustic phenomenon makes me think of a statistical learning in language acquisition in children. It has been shown by Saffran and colleagues that a child can learn to segment a continuous speech into distinct words using transitional probabilities between syllables. In the context of repeated words, a word boundary is first placed between "ted-re" of "re-pea-ted-re-pea-ted" because "ted-re" is not frequent in English while the two other transitions are frequent. Going further in the auditory sequence, repetitive presentation of an utterance promotes alternative groupings of the acoustic elements because the elements occur at regular, predictable points in time (Bregman, 1990). Here, repeating a word at a fixed syllable pace abolishes the frequency of the syllable transitions (the frequencies are momentarily all equal) so that "pi-a-no-pi-a-no" is sometimes heard as "piano" and sometimes "anopi".

**Ref.**

Bregman, 1990. Auditory scene analysis: The perceptual organization of sound.

Kounios et al., 2000. Memory & Cognition ; <http://www.psychonomic.org/pubmed/mc/mc-28-1366.pdf>

Pitt and Shoaf, 2002. JEP:HPP ; <http://lpl.psy.ohio-state.edu/documents/PittShoafVTE-17_000.pdf>

Warren & Gregory, 1958. An auditory analogue of the visual reversible ﬁgure, American Journal of Psychology.

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: Thanks for taking the time to answer.  We do encourage references in answers, so if you can find even peripherally related evidence for your claim, it would make a stronger case for this.  
> **username_2**: I added some references, formatted the text for a clearer presentation, and smoothed out the first version for a more fluent reading. Thanks for the encouragements!  
> **username_4**: Great additional information!  

---

