Abstract
This study found that repeated exposure to briefly presented stimuli increased positive affect through familiarity without enhancing recognition of the stimuli. Following exposure, subjects selected previously shown target stimuli on the basis of affect in the absence of stimulus recognition. Interpreted in terms of the manner in which information can be accessed in long-term storage, this study extends earlier research by showing that the ability to select target stimuli by affect can occur undiminished over a delay of 1 week between study and test. Repeated processing during study can produce a form of perceptual learning, called perceptual fluency, that can serve as the basis for stimulus discrimination in the absence of recognition at the time of test. The present results of familiar, but unrecognized, stimuli are analogous to the memory phenomenon of déjà vu.
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This research was supported by a Wesleyan University Grant in Support of Scholarship.
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Seamon, J.G., Brody, N. & Kauff, D.M. Affective discrimination of stimuli that are not recognized: II. Effect of delay between study and test. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 21, 187–189 (1983). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334682
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334682