Perceptual fluency and affect without recognition

A dichotic listening task was used to investigate the affect-without-recognition phenomenon. Subjects performed a distractor task by responding to the information presented in one ear while ignoring the target information presented in the other ear. The subjects' recognition of and affect toward the target information as well as toward foils was measured. The results offer evidence for the affect-without-recognition phenomenon. Furthermore, the data suggest that the subjects' affect toward the stimuli depended primarily on the extent to which the stimuli were perceived as familiar (i.e., subjective familiarity), and this perception was influenced by the ear in which the distractor or the target information was presented. These data are interpreted in terms of current models of recognition memory and hemispheric lateralization.