ABSTRACT

The verbal transformation effect (VTE) was first reported in 1958 by Warren and Gregory (Warren, 1968), who were looking for an auditory analogue to the ambiguous pictures used in the study of visual perception. Ambiguous pictures such as the Necker cube and the wife and mother-inlaw fluctuate because there is no context to determine the 'correct' percept. Warren points out that repeated presentation deprives a word of the context which ordinary speech usually provides, and thus that the listener (unconsciously) tries successive reorganisations within the limits provided by the original stimulus. This is consistent with the general explanation of perceptual constancy, which is that objects or events usually occur in a context which resolves any ambiguity in the particular stimulus. The context which resolves the ambiguity of a particular word can be closely associated with it (e.g. 'cats' after 'two' makes it very unlikely that 'too' or 'to' was the meaning) or it can be far away. Warren (1968, p. 269) cites an example from Lashley, who mentioned 'rapid writing' and a little later said 'rapid righting with his uninjured hand saved from loss the contents of the capsized canoe'. Here the context did not occur for three to five seconds after the ambiguous word.