Why do words start to look weird the longer you stare at them?
In: 1
It’s called [semantic satiation.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation)
“Semantic satiation is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.”
Essentially, your brain gets tired of hearing the same word over and over and starts to ‘ignore’ it, causing the word to lose meaning. Other senses have the same thing, eyes get tired of staring at a single colour, you can eventually ignore a certain smell, a constant sound can be ignored, and so on.
Latest Answers