Effects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective Judgments

45 Abstract— According to a two-step account of the mere-exposure effect, repeated exposure leads to the subjective feeling of perceptual fluency, which in turn influences liking. If so, perceptual fluency manipulated by means other than repetition should influence liking. In three experiments, effects of perceptual fluency on affective judgments were examined. In Experiment 1, higher perceptual fluency was achieved by presenting a matching rather than nonmatching prime before showing a target picture. Participants judged targets as prettier if preceded by a matching rather than nonmatching prime. In Experiment 2, perceptual fluency was manipulated by figure-ground contrast. Stimuli were judged as more pretty, and less ugly, the higher the contrast. In Experiment 3, perceptual fluency was manipulated by presentation duration. Stimuli shown for a longer duration were liked more, and disliked less. We conclude (a) that perceptual fluency increases liking and (b) that the experience of fluency is affectively positive, and hence attributed to positive but not to negative features, as reflected in a differential impact on positive and negative judgments. 0 Does processing fluency enhance preference for neutral stimuli? This possibility has been proposed as an explanation of the mere-According to the two-step attributional theory, the repeated presentation of a stimulus enhances the subjective feeling of processing fluency when the stimulus is encountered again. This enhanced perceptual fluency is then misattrib-uted to liking, resulting in a preference for old over new stimuli However, repetition may affect preference by mechanisms other than perceptual fluency. For example, Zajonc (1971, 1997) proposed that repeated exposure may enhance preference via habituation of the orienting response. Thus, to test if processing fluency enhances liking, it is useful to turn to manipulations other than mere exposure. Whittlesea (1993, Experiment 5) manipulated conceptual fluency by presenting words in a neutral or predictive semantic context (" The evening gown was missing a. .. bead " vs. " The bored student opened her mouth to. .. yawn "). The words that appeared in the predictive context were pronounced faster, indicating enhanced processing fluency, and were judged as more pleasant. Although suggestive, Whittlesea's findings leave unclear whether the predicted words were rated as more pleasant because of high processing fluency or because they were consistent with the semantic context whereas the unpredicted words were somewhat incongruous with the semantic context. Moreover, Whittlesea's findings leave open if perceptual , as opposed to conceptual, manipulations of fluency can enhance preference. The current …