Semantic satiation and perceiving meanings

Abstract

Some argue that we can and sometimes do perceptually experience meaning properties. Roughly, the idea is that when we listen to a speech or read a text in a language we know, our perceptual experience can present words as having certain meanings. One prominent support for this view is the argument from semantic satiation. When one excessively repeats a word by uttering, writing, or hearing it, it appears to “lose its meaning.” This familiar phenomenon is called semantic satiation. Semantic satiation seems to be a form of negative aftereffect, where excessive exposure to certain stimuli biases the subsequent experience in an opposing way. If so, the proponents argue that we can be perceptually aware of meaning properties because aftereffects are arguably perceptual phenomena. If experiences of meaning properties are subject to aftereffects, then they are perceptual. I argue that, unlike other putative forms of high-level aftereffects, semantic satiation does not provide the distinctive explanatory support needed for an inference to the thesis that perceptual experience presents meaning properties.