Comments on: Why do repeated words turn into gibberish?

Question: Why do repeated words turn into gibberish?

Tomorrowful — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:23:12 -0800

When you say a word over and over ("Temple temple temple temple...") it stops sounding like an actual word and starts seeming like a bunch of gibberish-sounds. Why?

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:30:52 -0800

Also.

By: iamkimiam

iamkimiam — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:37:34 -0800

We are constantley lookeng fore patterns.

By: asuprenant

asuprenant — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:37:55 -0800

Lack of context?

By: alby

alby — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:41:14 -0800

I think it's because of the way you say each syllable; they tend to "slip" and join up in the wrong order, so "temple temple temple temple" becomes "pultem pultem pultem pultem" which then slips between the two resulting in gibberish.

I would imagine therefore that words with more syllables would be more likely to do this.

By: Metroid Baby

Metroid Baby — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:44:53 -0800

I know my cognitive psych professor talked about this. She played a tape where the word "plant" was repeated quickly for a few minutes, and asked us what words we heard. Of course we heard a lot of other stuff, and some people heard words as far off as "twentieth."

Sadly I can't recall what it's called or the underlying theory. "Repetition deafness" seems close but I don't think it's right.

By: Nelsormensch

Nelsormensch — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:47:27 -0800

No real insight, but I've noticed this before. I actually first noticed it when I was in the same room as a TV playing Sesame Street (I don't remember why) and it had a little segment about "bus." It kept saying "bus" and showing pictures of buses. By the end, the word "bus" seemed *really* weird.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:47:48 -0800

My guess is it would have to do with fatigue the neurons that process the word itself. Any time your brain does something over and over again, the neurons that are used lose strength due to fatigue, just the same way your muscles do. This can be because of a loss of food as well as a lost of neurotransmitter chemicals.

This has a wide range of effects on perception. For example, if you stare at something for a long time without moving your eyes, the image will fade. in fact, if you look at something that already doesn't have much contrast (like a light switch) the object can disappear entirely. Another example would be background noises or repeating audio patters. After a while, you fail to notice them.

Another example is writing the same letter or word over and over. Each time, the actual reproduction will get slightly worse as the neurons weaken.

So my guess is that the neurons that process that particular word fatigue. Probably this is going on in the Broca's area, but who knows.

By: spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints

spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:48:44 -0800

There's a Radio Lab episode about a very similar phenomenon.

By: kindall

kindall — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:49:11 -0800

Try it with the phrase "ecology college." You'll think you're saying "collegy collegy collegy" within about two reps even though "collegy" isn't a word. That is kinda freaky (and not really the same as to the phenomenon you're talking about).

The term you're looking for is semantic saturation though. The answer to "why?" is that it's just something our brains do.

By: robofunk

robofunk — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:49:31 -0800

This might be described as a phantom word audio illusion.

By: Science!

Science! — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:08:09 -0800

Previously.

By: notyou

notyou — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:11:17 -0800

For a real kick, try it with your own name.

By: Rumple

Rumple — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:25:23 -0800

Not always: scratch your head and say the word LEAF many times, quickly. It is all-too-intelligible.

By: giraffe

giraffe — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:37:05 -0800

John C. Lilly did all sorts of weird research projects involving communication and the human (and uhh.. dolphin) brain. There isn't really information from him about hearing gibberish, but he does have a theory for why we hear different words from the same repeated word. From his official (?) site:

"...the reception of signals depends utterly upon the sequence of signals. [...] Our speech is built up of expected sequences that we long ago stored in our memory. [...] We expect that the next word, for example, will be different from the previous words. When we are exposed to a constantly repeating set of signals, our brain operates in such a way as to generate alternates to the constantly repeated set of signals according to certain computational rules."

I got this directly from this page which has the worst background in the history of the Internet. There are also sound clips so you can try the experiment out for yourself. I remember trying this awhile back and hearing some weird stuff out of "sayonara."

By: BozoBurgerBonanza

BozoBurgerBonanza — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:39:47 -0800

The Monkees knew how to use this to great effect. When they would need to consult with each other, they would call a "Monkee Huddle": they would gather into a tight circle and repeat over and over again the word "rhubarb", and it would sound like they were talking things over. Fun.

By: mimo

mimo — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:03:34 -0800

delmoi, your 'guess' would be wrong.

By: inconsequentialist

inconsequentialist — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:20:22 -0800

These also seem to be cases of jamais vu, the opposite of deja vu. The explanation for why it happens is similar to the one giraffe mentioned:

From a linguistic perspective, the phenomenon that a word after frequent repetition seems to lose its meaning is connected with the very nature of words. A word as a unit of language has three characteristics:

It has form, i.e. it is shaped out of sounds or, in the case of written language, out of letters (characters).
It has function, which (among other things) means that it operates in a meaningful sentence.
It has meaning, which implies that it refers to a certain unit of thought (a concept or an idea) within a context.

However, when a word is repeated over and over again, it is in fact only the form which is repeated. There is no sentence, so the function of the word is eliminated. Its meaning, too, is effectively eliminated, because there is no context. A few repetitions will leave the language user's memory and expectation intact: he remembers the meaning and expects a meaningful reference. Continued repetition, however, will more and more foreground the word form to the exclusion of function and meaning, until the word literally "makes no sense". It is not the word that is being repeated, but only one of its aspects: the word form.

By: sully75

sully75 — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:31:14 -0800

2nding the radio lab episode. verycool.

By: creasy boy

creasy boy — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:36:16 -0800

You are purposefully estranging the word from any and all context of use, and that is why it seems strange. This has parallels in the art world. If you take a photo of your hand, it looks stranger than it does normally -- because normally you look at your hand while doing something with it, but in the photo you've estranged it from these contexts, hence it seems strange. Anything can be made to seem strange if instead of doing stuff with it you contemplate it long enough.

By: SurrenderMonkey

SurrenderMonkey — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:32:47 -0800

Not always: scratch your head and say the word LEAF many times, quickly. It is all-too-intelligible.

I strongly disagree