Stimulus Properties,Frequency of Exposure,and Affective Responding

Abstract

Several variables which might be useful in explaining the relationship between frequency of exposure and attitudinal liking are investigated. Complexity of the stimuli and their familiarity were the major variables of interest. Also involved were the sex of Ss and the individual stimuli. Four sets of stimuli were presented 20 times to independent groups of Ss, with scale ratings taken on the 1st and 20th presentations. The results showed that familiarity and complexity interacted in a complex fashion for liking. For highly familiar stimuli, an inverse relationship between complexity and affect held (p = .10), but for novel stimuli a significant direct relationship held. Implications of the data for the hypothesized relationship of affect and complexity were discussed.

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