Lateralized mere exposure: an analytic/non-analytic processing approach
Date
2002
Authors
Price, John Ryan
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Abstract
It is known that individuals have a preference for items they have seen before, even when those items are presented so quickly that they cannot be consciously recalled (the "mere exposure effect"). Whittlesea and Price (2001) concluded that the mere exposure effect was an artefact of the alternative strategies (analytic vs. non-analytic) that subjects were using to generate information about stimuli they were exposed to at test. Specifically, a non-analytic strategy promoted target selection above chance, whereas an analytic strategy prevented target selection above chance.
The current study elaborated on this analytic/non-analytic distinction. Many studies have demonstrated that the right-hemisphere uses a non-analytic strategy for processing stimuli, whereas the left hemisphere uses an analytic strategy. Given this dissociation, it was predicted that a mere exposure effect would be found when stimuli were initially presented to the LVF, but not when initially presented to the RVF. Results modestly supported these predictions.