Liking What's Familiar: The Importance of Unconscious Familiarity in the Mere-Exposure Effect

Although previous research on the mere-exposure effect has shown that unconscious familiarity may play an important role in attitude formation, it is still unclear whether unconscious familiarity is associated with attitudes even when conscious recognition is present. The present research fills this gap. In two experiments, conscious and unconscious memory contributions to recognition were estimated with the process-dissociation procedure. Additionally, both influences were varied independently of each other. In Experiment 1, the level of conscious recognition was manipulated by distracting participants during the presentation of novel brand names. Prior exposure increased attitudes independently of the level of distraction. Moreover, attitudes correlated positively with unconscious familiarity but not with conscious recognition. In Experiment 2, unconscious familiarity was manipulated by contrast intervals in radio advertisements. Enhancing unconscious familiarity also increased liking for the names. The results suggest that repeated exposure affects attitude formation independently of conscious recognition and stress the role of unconscious familiarity in attitude formation.