The mere exposure effect is modulated by selective attention but not visual awareness.
Repeated exposures to an object will lead to an enhancement of evaluation toward that object. Although this mere exposure effect may occur when the objects are presented subliminally, the role of conscious perception per se on evaluation has never been examined. Here we use a binocular rivalry paradigm to investigate whether a variance in conscious perceptual duration of faces has an effect on their subsequent evaluation, and how selective attention and memory interact with this effect. Our results show that face evaluation is positively biased by selective attention but not affected by visual awareness. Furthermore, this effect is not due to participants recalling which face had been attended to.
Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders Program, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore. Electronic address: yufeng.huang@duke-nus.edu.sg.
Yu-Feng
YF
Huang
Po-Jang
PJ
Hsieh
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D035502:Trust; D015348:Vision, Binocular / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
Attention; Binocular rivalry; Consciousness; Emotion; Mere exposure