It Felt Fluent and I Liked it: Subjective Feeling of Fluency rather than Objective Fluency Determines Liking

Autor(en)

Michael Forster, Ulrich Ansorge, Helmut Leder

Abstrakt

According to the processing-fluency explanation of aesthetics, more fluently processed stimuli are preferred (R. Reber, N. Schwarz, & P. Winkielman, 2004, Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver’s processing experience? Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol. 8, pp.
364–382.). In this view, the subjective feeling of ease of processing is considered important, but this has not been directly tested in perceptual processing. In two experiments, we therefore objectively manipulated
fluency (ease of processing) with subliminal perceptual priming (Study 1) and variations in presentation durations (Study 2). We assessed the impact of objective fluency on feelings of fluency and liking, as well as their interdependence. In line with the processing-fluency account, we found that
objectively more fluent images were indeed judged as more fluent and were also liked more. Moreover, differences in liking were even stronger when data were analyzed according to felt fluency. These findings demonstrate that perceptual fluency is not only explicitly felt, it can also be reported and is an important determinant of liking.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Psychologie der Kognition, Emotion und Methoden

Journal

Emotion

Band

13

Seiten

280-289

ISSN

1528-3542

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030115

Publikationsdatum

04-2013

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

501006 Experimentalpsychologie, 501026 Wahrnehmungspsychologie, 501001 Allgemeine Psychologie, 501021 Sozialpsychologie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/e10fd32f-1c29-4328-907f-cb65fe9cc79b