judgment fatigue , summary part ii : stromswold , ross , tang boyland , be asley the following are what i found to be especially informative quotes from four individual respondents who gave specific comments regarding the types of stimuli which tend to induce judgment fatigue . kimberly barskaitiki also sent a long , specific , detailed response with many interesting examples . ( thank you ! ) her response is not included here because it presented fewer strong , testable , theoretical claims . ( i must note here that ross and beasley are quoted without their expressed permission , for which i hereby beseech the authors ' belated dispensations . i post all comments here in only the most charitable light , with the hope of sharing the author 's experience and information . ) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * > as a graduate student at mit in 1986 , i wrote a paper on the > phenomenon you described for a course i took with merrill garrett . i > dubbed the phenomenon " syntactic satiation " as a nod to work on > semantic satiation ( the widely studied phenomenon that words loose > their ' meaning ' on repeated presentation . e . g . . , repeat the word > " snow " 20 times and it starts sounding funny . and you can't come up > with as many semantically associated words like " ice " and " cold " ) . > > the study was n't rigorously done and i never attempted to publish the > paper ( which was called " syntactic satiation ) , but what i discovered > was > > 1 ) with repeated judgments , subjects ' judgments got less certain and > reliable ( some subjects explicitly said they were n't sure anymore ) . > but even before subjects ' lost confidence in their judgments / made > mistakes , they got much slower in making judgments . > > 2 ) syntactic satiation seems to be relatively specific . for example , > i had my subjects make repeated judgments of wh-questions ( e . g . , > that-t , long distance , island etc . ) and i found that their ability to > judge wh-questiosn was impaired , but not their ability to judge other > stimuli ( e . g . , double object datives ) > > 3 ) satiation did * not * occur when subjects were asked to make > judgments about semantic plausibility ( where implausible > sentences involved violations of animacy restrictions , e . g . , > the juice spilled the child that stained the rug ) > > 4 ) i also did n't get any clear evidence of satiation at the > morphological level ( e . g . , asking subjects to judge sentences > with case / tense violations , e . g . , i gave it to he ; she give him a book ) > > 5 ) rate of presentation seemed to be an important factor in inducing > satiation . if subjects are urged to go quickly , they satiate faster . > this goes along with findings in the semantic satiation where whether > semantic priming or satiation occurs seems to depend on rate of > presentation ( at least in part ) . > > 6 ) being forced to make ungraded judgments ( i . e . , good vs . bad with no > intermediate judgments allowed ) also seemed to induce faster satiation > > 7 ) satiation seems to be temporary , although i can't say what the > refractory period is . it is probably less than 1 month ( the interval > i retested at ) > > 8 ) i did n't detect satiation when i gave subjects mixtures of sentences > to judge ( in my case , datives , passives , wh-questions , and tense / case ) . > > when i did the lit review for the paper , i found a few other studies > that looked at things related to syntactic satiation / syntactic priming . > i will see if i can dig up the paper and find the references for you . > also , william snyder at mit presented a poster ( ? ) at the lsa conference > in 1994 ( ? ) where he looked at this phenomenon . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * > from john robert ( haj ) ross ( fj44 @ jove . acs . unt . edu ) : > . . . the term i remember > being in on the birth of was actually " to scant out " , the term being > proposed by arnold zwicky and me , and doubltless others , in the summer of > 1963 , while we were working at mitre corporation in bedford mass , and > scanting out was a common hazard . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * > from joyce tang boyland : > much of the information i have comes from responses i received to a > query i posted to linguist list about 4 years ago . > . . . one of the refs was for carson schutze 's ma thesis . the others > i think were only old cognitive psych papers on semantic not syntactic > satiation . i can dig them up if you are still interested . basically > i do n't think there has been much actual research on the subject ; > schutze 's lit review was very thorough but he only mentioned one or two > not very conclusive pieces of research on satiation . i ' m very glad you > are planning to research this experimentally . i used to have stronger > opinions on this than i do now , but i do think that syntactic satiation > does happen . i think that knowing about it ought to have an effect on the > practice of linguistics , and i would also say that it has some implications > for theories of acquisition and of historical language change , which i can > expound on further if you are interested . > > another thought is that there are at least two different things going on in > syntactic and semantic satiation . from the linguist query i posted several > years ago , i gathered that haj ross some time ago coined the phrase " scanting > out " to describe the experience of losing one 's intuition on what the word > " scant " means and can be used for after thinking about it overtly for too long ; > i think this is a case of excessive meta-linguistic attention interfering with > what one would normally know , like the millipede in the fable being asked how > it could possibly walk and then it could n't walk anymore . when i was little i > used to play with saying a word over and over to myself until it became only a > sequence of sounds without meaning ; this might have been a similar phenomenon . > i see this as a sort of evaporating of subconscious associations or constraint s > ( for lack of better terminology ) when under the spotlight of consciousness . > > i think a second process , in syntactic satiation in particular , is similar > to something that 's being studied in social psychology , which is that the > frequency of your witnessing something may affect how acceptable you think > it is , if you did n't have an opinion on it in the first place ( which people > often do n't have on linguistic constructions ) . ( having an opinion in the > first place , if i remember correctly , is something that the researcher whom > schutze cites did not control for . my copy of s is in another building at the > moment . ) ( i am reconstructing vague memories very freely here , so i may not > be reflecting the literature faithfully , but these are the lines along which > i am thinking . ) so in this case people won't be * losing * all * the > associations or constraints that a word or construction would normally have , > but rather , a * particular * type of use they hear which violates a particular > constraint may become * more * acceptable * . the gross effect of certain uses > becoming more acceptable may appear to be the same as the millipede effect , > since one 's intuitions are changing , but more careful inspection should show > a different fine structure . > i suppose i might as well add here that the degree to which a construction > is susceptible to satiation effects ( this latter one esp . ) might well be a > measure of its susceptibility to ( or even progress towards ) grammaticalization . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * > from tim beasley ( tbeasley @ ucla . edu ) > a few things cause my intuition to crash and burn . > > the most frustrating and reliable is judging individual items in a list of > sentences , and ranking them from ok to ? to ? * to * . if i start from the ok > side , i will over-accept sentences . if i start from the * side , i will > over-reject sentences . it 's worst when the sentences proceed stepwise , > changing one lexical or syntactic feature ( especially small ones ) . and when > the person asking me to rank them interacts , asking me if i ' m sure . > > i . e . , i become muddled if , in comparing sentences , i accept one , and then > realize that the second is some sort of extension of or analogical to the > first . if the first is right , then the second _ must _ be right . and then the > third must be ok . er , well , no , but that does n't stop me . > > similarly , comparing two quasi-homonymous structures or lexemes in a battery > of sentences designed to elicit the differences between them usually results > in really , really bad results . one such test posted to linguist caused me > to alter my own usage for several weeks . > > lexical items that cause me to stumble regularly : any , all . often there > will be one very blatant reading of a sentence ; if somebody suggests a > second interpretation , my intuition curls up to hibernate for the duration . > in a word : s-c - o-p - e . other problems with scope crop up , too ( negation , > adjectives , etc . ) . [ . . . reference to interference from experience with different languages . . . ] > i ' ve come to assume that the linguistic muddle ( apart from inter-language > problems ) results from attempting to find a coherent , rational meaning for > the sentences . agreement and other such grammatical errors are trivial to > spot , usually . otherwise , if the task succeeds , i assume the sentence must > be ok , unless there is some clear , overwhelming error in word choice , focus , > government , etc . lists of marginal sentences weaken my sense of what a > clear error is as i move my ok / not-ok boundary marker ( my perception of the > norm ) to allow for marginalia and enable me to interpret the next in a > series of increasingly aberrant sentences . > [ . . . another reference to experience with different dialects of english . . . ] > in any case , it takes a leap of humility to realize when i can no longer > judge sentences in my native language . . . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * end of post - - - bjl
