Stimulus repetition effects on attention to words and colors.
Mere observation of 30 presentations of a colored form results in slower reaction time responses to the familiarized stimulus than to a comparable novel stimulus. Prior research suggest that this result is due to two subsidiary effects of repetition: alertness decrement and encoding facilitation. Four experiments were conducted to compare the effects of stimulus repetition on colors and words. The two-factor theory of repetition was found to hold for words as well as for colors; for words, in contrast to colors, encoding facilitation was found to be stronger than alertness decrement.
D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics