THE MERE EXPOSURE EFFECT FOR STIMULI PRESENTED BELOW RECOGNITION THRESHOLD - A FAILURE TO REPLICATE

Repeated exposure to a stimulus increase, one's affect toward that sti mulus. This finding, termed the mere exposure effect, has been obtaine d even when the exposure durations are below the threshold of recognit ion. Reported are three experiments designed to assess whether the mer e exposure effect for stimuli presented below the threshold of recogni tion could be obtained for meaningful stimuli. Analysis showed that me aningfulness of the stimuli had no effect on ratings of affect; howeve r, we did not replicate previous findings of a mere exposure effect fo r stimuli that were not recognized. The robustness of the mere exposur e effect for stimuli presented below the threshold of awareness was qu estioned.