Implicit processes and the mere exposure effect.
Item
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Title
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Implicit processes and the mere exposure effect.
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Identifier
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AAI3047282
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identifier
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3047282
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Creator
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Zizak, Diane M.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Arthur S. Reber
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Date
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2002
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Experimental
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Abstract
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This study involves six experiments which examine the ways in which the mere exposure effect can generalize to structurally similar items. The "classic" mere exposure effect refers to the tendency for previously seen items to be liked more than novel ones (Zajonc, 1968, 1993). The structural mere exposure effect reflects the tendency to show hedonic appreciation for novel stimuli which are structurally consistent with those previously encountered (Gordon & Holyoak, 1983; Manza & Bornstein, 1995). Using an artificial grammar paradigm typically employed in implicit learning studies (Reber, 1993), participants are asked to make both well-formedness and affective evaluations about test strings. During the acquisition phase, participants are presented exemplars of grammatical strings. They are then asked to evaluate test items which are either repeated from the learning set, new yet grammatical, or grammatically incorrect. In some experiments, highly unusual and unfamiliar symbols were used to instantiate the grammar (Chinese and Japanese characters). In others, more familiar and mundane elements (such as English consonants) were used. Whereas subjects were capable of making grammatical discriminations in all six experiments, the results indicate that the nature of the stimuli plays a key role in determining when classic and/or structural mere exposure effects are elicited. With the more commonplace elements, both the classic and structural mere exposure effects were found. However, the use of highly unfamiliar elements tends not to produce either classic or structural effects. In Experiment 5, native Russian readers were asked to evaluate Cyrillic letters. However, the results of this experiment were anomalous. Results discuss the way in which both induced and a priori familiarity relates to implicit learning theory, as well as the role of familiarity with respect to the structural mere exposure effect.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
