Question 1- What Is Processing Fluency And How Can It Be Measured Experimentally? Flashcards
What is processing fluency?
-A theory of aesthetic pleasure proposed by Reber, Schwarz and Winkielman (2004)
-Fundamental idea:
•the more one fluenty processes an item or stimuli, the more positive one’s aesthetic response to it
What 2 types of fluency make processing fluency?
-Perceptual fluency:
•the ease to which the stimulus can be identified based on its physical features, such as presentation duration, figure-ground contrast, repetition and perceptual priming
-Conceptual fluency:
•how easy it is to identify an object based on familiarity and similarity of meaning and concepts
Objectivist or subjectivist?
-Takes on an interactionist approach
•”beauty is grounded in the processing experiences of the perceiver that emerge from the interaction of stimulus properties and perceivers’ cognitive and affective processes”
One way of measuring processing fluency?
-Perceptual primes: Winkielman and Cacioppo (2001):
•PPs watched black and white pictures of neutral everyday objects, e.g horse or chair
•Study 1:
~Unobtrusive primes were used that either matched or did not match the target. They were presented before the target and were outlines with a random pattern in the middle.
~PPs rated how positive or negative it was (some PPs had positive, some had negative only). Facial EMG was collected from each PP.
•Study 2:
~PPs again watched the black and white neutral pictures, except some pictures were presented longer than others. Done to see if longer pictures resulted in positive reactions
~PPs also given a rating scale than included positive and negative ratings
•Results:
~pictures that matched the primes and longer presented pictures were easier to process and resulted in positive affect ratings indicated by the facial EMG and higher positive ratings (in study 1 the PPs did not rate highly on negative scale).
Another way of measuring processing fluency?
-Figure-ground contrast: Reber, Winkielman and Schwarz (1998), Reber and Schwarz (2001):
•Higher figure-ground contrasts, like black circles on white backgrounds, are processed more fluently and liked more than lower figure-ground contrasts, like light grey circles on dark grey backgrounds.
