Exposure effects and associative learning

Abstract

The contributions of initial stimulus affect and of associative learning to the effects of repeated stimulus exposures were examined in two experiments. Stimuli that were initially positive and stimuli that were initially negative were presented for different number of times, and subjects rated these stimuli afterward on a number of affective dimensions. In all cases, except when negative affect was associatively paired with every stimulus exposure, affective responses became increasingly more positive with increasing exposures. The results were taken to indicate that the exposure effect can overcome an initially negative stimulus affect when the conditions of the mere exposure hypothesis are satisfied. Initial stimulus affect and associative learning of affect were shown to be independent factors, the first influencing the intercept of the exposure function, the second its slope.