72 college students saw a spatial display in which nonsense-word stimuli occurred 25, 10, 5, 2, 1 and 0 times. Occurrences of a given stimulus were either massed or distributed throughout the display. After a 4-min. viewing period, they rated all stimuli on a 7-point good-bad scale. Affect was a linear function of frequency, corroborating Zajonc's results with temporal presentation of stimuli that high-frequency items are preferred to low-frequency items. However, mode of presentation of these stimuli (massed versus distributed) had no direct effect or interaction with their frequency.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
HarrisonA. A.Response competition, frequency, exploratory behavior, and liking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1968, 9, 363–368.
2.
MatlinM. W.Response competition as a mediating factor in the frequency-affect relationship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, 16, 536–552.
3.
MatlinM. W.Serial position, perceived serial position, and affect. Journal of General Psychology, in press.
4.
TrillinC.U. S. Journal: Lower Bucks County, Pa.—Buying and selling along Route 1. New Yorker, 1969, November 15, 45, 174.
5.
ZajoncR. B.Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1968, 9(2, Pt. 2), 1–27.
6.
ZajoncR. B.RajeckiD. W.Exposure and affect: A field experiment. Psychonomic Science, 1969, 17, 216–217.
