Processing fluency: Difference between revisions

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Research in cognitive neuroscience and psychology has shown that processing fluency influences different kinds of judgments. For instance, perceptual fluency can contribute to the experience of familiarity when fluent processing is attributed to the past. Repeating the presentation of a stimulus, also known as [[Priming (psychology)|priming]], is one method for enhancing fluency. Jacoby and Dallas in 1981 argued that items from past experience are processed more fluently.<ref name=Jacoby1981/> This becomes a learned experience throughout our lifetime such that fluent items can be attributed to the past. Therefore, people sometimes take fluency as an indication that a stimulus is familiar even though the sense of familiarity is false.<ref name=Whittlesea1993/> Perceptual fluency literature has been dominated with research that posits that fluency leads to familiarity. Behavioral measures of fluency do not have the temporal resolution to properly investigate the interaction between fluency and familiarity. [[Event-related potentials]] (ERPs) are a method of averaging brainwaves that has been successful in dissociating different cognitive mechanisms due to small time scale that brainwaves are measured.<ref name=Rugg2007/> One study was able to use a manipulation of visual clarity to change perceptual fluency during a recognition task. This manipulation effected ERPs for fluency and familiarity at different times and locations in the brain leading them to believe that these two mechanisms do not come from the same source.<ref name=Leynes2012/>

Further evidence has shown that artificial techniques can be used to trick people into believing they have encountered a stimulus previously. In one experiment,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brown|first=Alan S.|last2=Marsh|first2=Elizabeth J.|date=2009-05-01|title=Creating Illusions of Past Encounter Through Brief Exposure|url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02337.x|journal=Psychological Science|language=en|volume=20|issue=5|pages=534–538|doi=10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02337.x}}</ref> participants were presented symbols which consisted of highly familiarlyfamiliar symbols, less familiar symbols and novel symbols. Participants were required to report whether they had encountered any of the symbols presented before the experiment. A 35 millisecond flash preceded each symbol, in which the same, different or no symbol was flashed. It was found that the brief flash of stimulus boosted the fluency of the target item. When the same symbol was flashed, participants’ ratings of having encountered the symbol previously increased. This example illustrates that fluent processing can induce a feeling of familiarity.

Fluency and familiarity have been shown to lead to the mere exposure effect. Research has found that repetition of a stimulus can lead to fluent processing which leads to a feeling of liking.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Newell|first=Ben R.|last2=Shanks|first2=David R.|date=2007-01-01|title=Recognising what you like: Examining the relation between the mere-exposure effect and recognition|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09541440500487454|journal=European Journal of Cognitive Psychology|volume=19|issue=1|pages=103–118|doi=10.1080/09541440500487454|issn=0954-1446}}</ref> In this experiment, participants were presented with unfamiliar faces either three or nine times. After presentation, pairs of faces were shown to participants, each consisting of an old and new face. Results showed that participants gave higher rates of liking to the repeated faces. The mere exposure effect is eliminated if fluent processing is disrupted. Topolinski et al., (2014)<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Topolinski|first=Sascha|last2=Lindner|first2=Sandy|last3=Freudenberg|first3=Anna|date=2014-04-01|title=Popcorn in the cinema: Oral interference sabotages advertising effects|url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057740813000879|journal=Journal of Consumer Psychology|series=Sensory perception, embodiment, and grounded cognition: Implications for consumer behavior|volume=24|issue=2|pages=169–176|doi=10.1016/j.jcps.2013.09.008}}</ref> explained that the fluency created by pronunciation plays a vital role in increasing fondness for a stimulus. In the experiment,<ref name=":0" /> participants were shown unfamiliar adverts in a cinema. The control group watched the adverts with a sugar cube in their mouth. Therefore, there was no interference in pronunciation in the control group. The experimental group watched the adverts whilst eating popcorn, which meant there was oral interference. One week later, participants rated their liking of products. In the control group, the mere exposure effect was observed, where old products had higher ratings than new products. In the experimental group, the mere exposure effect was abolished by interfering with fluency of pronunciation during presentation of stimulus.