Exposure, satiation, and stimulus discriminability.

Abstract

A series of four experiments was carried out in an attempt to understand a curvilinear relationship found between the frequency of stimulus exposure and affective ratings. The inverted-U function was suggestive of satiation effects. Preliminary experiments indicated that stimulus discriminability may work to attenuate the relationship between exposure and affect, but further experiments using a variety of stimuli failed to confirm the initial findings. The possibility was examined that for some stimuli, satiation effects occur early in the exposure series, and if they occur at all for other stimuli, they do so only after a very large number of exposures. It was not possible to specify which particular properties of stimuli make them vulnerable to satiation effects.Recent studies have indicated that the repeated exposure of a stimulus object to an individual seems to be a sufficient condition for the enhancement of his attraction to the object (Harrison, 1968;Johnson, Thomson, & Frincke, 1960; Matlin, 1970;Zajonc, 1968). These studies have been limited to semantic or attitudinal ratings made in response to repeatedly presented nonsense words, Chinese ideographs, or faces of men. But the older literature on the effects of repeated exposure has been primarily concerned with aesthetic judgments. The results of these older studies show a pattern that is strikingly consistent with the data collected more recently on neutral stimuli, especially in one important respect: the most pronounced attitudinal effects are obtained when exposure is manipulated for novel or unfamiliar objects. Thus, for instance, American students' liking for Oriental music was increased more by virtue of repeated exposure than was their liking for jazz (Meyer, 1903;Moore & Gilliland, 1924). Mull (1957) was successful in making the music of Schoenberg and Hindemith more enjoyable after several exposures to subjects not familiar with that form of music. Similar effects have been obtained in the area of art appreciation (Krugman & Hartley, 1960;Maslow, 1937).

Liking and Memory for Musical Stimuli as a Function of Exposure.

“…In most of the relevant research (Bornstein, 1989;Zajonc, 2001), stimuli are initially neutral with respect to affect before the exposure phase. Interestingly, in one instance in which aesthetically pleasing stimuli (artworks) were presented (Zajonc et al, 1972), satiation effects were similarly robust to the one observed in Experiment 2.…”

O paradigma associado ao efeito de mera-exposição

“…O delineamento experimental minimalista é o que compara simplesmente a avaliação de estímulos novos com a de estímulos previamente apresentados. Os estudos que realizaram um número elevado de repetições sugerem a possibilidade do efeito se reverter a partir de 10-20 repetições (Stang & O'Connell, 1974;Zajonc, Shaver, Tavris, & Van Kreveld, 1972). No entanto Zajonc, Crandall, Kail, & Swap (1974, Experimento 1) reportam efeitos consistentes até 243 repetições.…”

A Functional Explanation for the Effects of Visual Exposure on Preference

“…Although exposure effects have been shown for both passive exposure (Zajonc 1968;Zajonc et al 1972;Bornstein 1989) and active exposure where the observer can choose on which object to fixate (Shimojo et al 2003), our hypothesis predicts certain differences between passive and active exposure. Because people have a tendency to look at what they preferösomething we are not explaining here, but something more obviously functionally advantageousöin active (but not passive) exposure scenarios there will be a positive feedback between seeing and preference.…”

“…Exposure effect (Zajonc 1968;Zajonc et al 1972;Bornstein 1989;Shimojo et al 2003) Cascade effect (Shimojo et al 2003) Enhanced cascade effect for initially similarly-preferred objects (Shimojo et al 2003) (B) The estimated utility of the object, V (X) (B.1) Overexposure to object type X eventually serves as evidence that X is overabundant, inconsistent with it having a high utility, and thereby lowering the estimated utility. The expected utility of acting to obtain X eventually is dampened, and therefore the degree of preference for X should eventually dampen [either counteracting or reversing the initial preference increase in (A.1)].…”

“…Typically, then, a small number of visual exposures will tend to enhance preference for objects of type X. We speculate that this simple fact underlies fundamental exposure effects, where visual exposure to X initially tends to enhance preference (Zajonc 1968;Zajonc et al 1972;Bornstein 1989;Shimojo et al 2003)ösee table 1, A.1.…”