Comparison Of Supraliminal And Subliminal Mere Exposure Effect:Differentiation Between Preference And Familiarity

Mere exposure effect refers to the fact that repeated,unreinforced exposure to a stimulus which is made just accessible to the individual’s perception can improve an individual’s preference for a stimulus.Since it was proposed,mere exposure effect has been proved by a large number of studies and has been applied in a wide range of research fields.The formation of mere exposure effect is simple,but its size and mode are modulated by many factors.As the mainstream theory of mere exposure effect,fluency/attribution model proposes three hypotheses:(1)Repeated exposure to a stimuli does not essentially change the preference to stimuli;(2)mere exposure effect is caused by individuals misattributing familiarity caused by the increased fluency of repeated exposure to preference;(3)When individuals realize that fluency comes from the previous exposure to that stimulus,mere exposure effect will be weakened,that is,the explicit memory of the stimulus is the limiting condition of mere exposure effect.According to the above hypothesis of fluency/attribution model,the influence of repeated exposure on preference and familiarity should be the same,and subliminal mere exposure effect should be greater than supraliminal mere exposure effect.However,few studies directly compare the influence of fluency on preference and familiarity in the same experiment.Previous studies lack effective experimental evidence on whether fluency has the same influence on preference and familiarity.In addition,no consistent results were obtained on the difference between supraliminal mere exposure effect and subliminal mere exposure effect.In order to verify the rationality of the hypothesis of fluency/attribution model,this study set three kinds of familiarity level materials with low familiarity,medium familiarity and high familiarity,manipulated the number of stimuli presented,and explored the influence of supraliminal or subliminal mere exposure on preference and familiarity.In experiment 1,we use Chinese ideographs as experimental materials.The experimental design was a within-subject design with 2 presentation condition(500ms supraliminal,30 ms subliminal)×3 presentation times(0,4,16 times).The results showed that under supraliminal presentation condition or subliminal presentation condition,mere exposure effect was obtained for both 4 and 16 presentations.When presented for 16 times,supraliminal mere exposure effect was larger than subliminal mere exposure effect.There was no significant difference in the growth of preference and familiarity in the supraliminal presentation condition or subliminal presentation condition.In experiment 2,low-frequency double-word phrases were used as experimental materials.The experimental design was still within-subject design of 2 presentation condition(500ms supraliminal,30 ms subliminal)×3 presentation times(0,4,16 times).The results showed that under supraliminal presentation condition or subliminal presentation condition,mere exposure effect was obtained for both 4 and 16 presentations.There was no significant difference between supraliminal mere exposure effect and subliminal mere exposure effect.In both supraliminal presentation condition and subliminal presentation condition,the growth range of familiarity was significantly greater than that of preference after repeated exposure to stimulus.In experiment 3,high-frequency double-word phrases were used as experimental materials.The experimental design was still the within-subject design of 2 presentation condition(500ms supraliminal,30 ms subliminal)×3 presentation times(0,4,16 times).The results showed that only in supraliminal condition obtained the mere exposure effect after 4 times of presentation,while subliminal presentation did not obtain mere exposure effect.When presented for 4 times,the supraliminal mere exposure effect was greater than the subliminal mere exposure effect.In both supraliminal presentation condition and subliminal presentation condition,the growth range of familiarity was significantly greater than that of preference after repeated exposure to the stimulus.Through a series of experiments and results analysis,this study concluded that:(1)The supraliminal mere exposure effect is greater than the subliminal mere exposure effect,and explicit memory is not the limiting condition of mere exposure effect;(2)Supraliminal or subliminal repeated exposure have different influences on preference and familiarity.Therefore,mere exposure effect does not occur because familiarity is misattributed to preference;(3)The experimental results do not support the hypothesis of fluency/attribution model;(4)Mere exposure effect is modulated by stimulus familiarity.