[HN Gopher] The the the the induction of jamais vu: word alienat...
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       The the the the induction of jamais vu: word alienation and
       semantic satiation
        
       Author : ericciarla
       Score  : 39 points
       Date   : 2024-06-19 20:39 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.tandfonline.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.tandfonline.com)
        
       | adolph wrote:
       | Genuinely interesting, thank you poster. I've encountered the
       | sensation periodically since childhood and never had a word for
       | it.
       | 
       |  _Jamais vu is a phenomenon operationalised as the opposite of
       | deja vu, i.e. finding subjectively unfamiliar something that we
       | know to be familiar. We sought to document that the subjective
       | experience of jamais vu can be produced in word alienation tasks,
       | hypothesising that deja vu and jamais vu are similar experiential
       | memory phenomena._
        
       | web3-is-a-scam wrote:
       | When I worked in marketing software I experienced this often with
       | the term "referral". To this day I still feel kindof weird when I
       | see the term.
        
         | SonOfLilit wrote:
         | When I did a lot of web development I experienced something
         | similar with the word "referal".
        
       | mpalmer wrote:
       | We need the Oscars "In Memoriam" every year, but it's for words
       | we lost to semantic satiation.
       | 
       | Off the top of my head:
       | 
       | iconic
       | 
       | epic
       | 
       | brilliant
       | 
       | "blazingly fast"
       | 
       | literally
        
         | EnigmaFlare wrote:
         | This is about repeating the word many times in isolation of
         | other words, not using an exaggeration for lesser things so the
         | meaning drifts. I think everyone's familiar with it by trying
         | to say the same word over and over again, it quickly becomes
         | weird and seems to lose its meaning or even become hard to say.
        
           | SonOfLilit wrote:
           | GP is engaging in the iconic HN tradition of commenting
           | something brilliant that has nothing to do with TFA.
           | Literally seconds later, someone has to point out the epic
           | failure. I've been reading HN for 17 years, and I must lament
           | that it is turning "blazingly fast" into reddit. Because of
           | people like me, I guess :)
        
       | clbrmbr wrote:
       | I think in language learning it's important not to over-review
       | content for this very reason.
        
       | alexey-salmin wrote:
       | https://xkcd.com/1046/
        
       | r721 wrote:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation
        
       | Waterluvian wrote:
       | There's two phenomena that come to mind: 1) when I say the same
       | word over and over and within a minute the word sounds and feels
       | weird and wrong. 2) everyone overuses and exaggerates a word so
       | much that it loses its power and meaning.
       | 
       | Are these the same thing?
        
         | pixl97 wrote:
         | I don't think so.
         | 
         | I've had number 1 occur to me just a few times in life. One
         | where I was waiting for our printing class to be unlocked in
         | school and when looking at PRINT SHOP on the door, suddenly
         | PRINT became unreal to me. Like "what the fuck is this word".
         | It is an odd and very jarring experience.
         | 
         | 2 is more like saying "You're a nazi" when someone doesn't
         | clean up spilled milk devaluing the impact of the term.
        
       | dwighttk wrote:
       | Happened with me a few times with the word "knee"
        
         | Rygian wrote:
         | Any relation to Monty Python?
        
       | LordGrey wrote:
       | My trigger word for semantic satiation is "what" for some reason.
        
         | NKosmatos wrote:
         | Reminded me of the "say what" scene from Pulp Fiction ;-)
        
       | Yoric wrote:
       | Is this what happens with words losing their entire meaning with
       | propaganda?
       | 
       | Not going to quote a specific word, but I live in a country that
       | has gone into propaganda overdrive during the last few weeks and
       | people who should know better (quite possibly including myself)
       | are starting to use words to mean anything and their opposite.
        
         | JohnMakin wrote:
         | how woke of you /s
        
         | chimpanzee wrote:
         | No, this is about how a repeated word can lose familiarity and
         | meaning _entirely_. In particular, the audible and visible
         | forms become unfamiliar, as though it is no longer a legitimate
         | word at all and instead sounds and appears like pure nonsense
         | or of another unknown language.
        
         | cynicalkane wrote:
         | No, but
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langu...
         | is a good essay on the use of propaganda to destroy language,
         | and the natural process with which it's bought into.
        
       | otras wrote:
       | An easy way to do this is to remember this oddly grammatically
       | correct sentence:
       | 
       | Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
       | 
       | Though is it satiation if the meaning is different for different
       | instances?
        
         | comradesmith wrote:
         | I don't think that's the same at all. Nobody could ever
         | actually understand that sentence without breaking it down.
         | 
         | Semantic satiation can come up when you're having a
         | conversation and use the same word often enough (not
         | necessarily back to back) that it feels like that word is
         | wrong, or doesn't mean anything. You start to pay attention to
         | the sound of the word instead of the meaning.
        
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       (page generated 2024-06-19 23:00 UTC)