A mere exposure effect for transformed three-dimensional objects: effects of reflection, size, or color changes on...

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Memory Studies

Background:

• The mere exposure effect suggests familiarity breeds liking, potentially linked to implicit memory.
• Previous research indicates explicit and implicit memory measures can be dissociated by experimental manipulations.
• Understanding the basis of affective preference requires examining its relationship with recognition memory.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether recognition memory and affective preference are dissociated by transformations.
• To determine if experimental variables affect implicit memory (affective preference) and explicit memory (recognition) differently.
• To explore the nature of representations underlying affective preference and recognition memory.

Main Methods:

• Participants studied three-dimensional objects.
• Recognition memory and affective preference were tested after transformations (reflection, size, color) between study and test.
• Performance on recognition and affect judgments were compared across transformation conditions.

Main Results:

• Recognition memory was impaired by reflection and size transformations.
• Affective preference was not affected by reflection, size, or color transformations.
• Stimulus color transformations did not impact either recognition or affective preference.

Conclusions:

• Representations supporting recognition memory encode spatial information (orientation, size).
• Representations underlying affective preference do not encode such spatial details.
• Implicit memory measures, including affective preference, are insensitive to changes not altering object form.