Mental Imagery and the Mere Exposure Effect

心理意象和单纯暴露效应

• 批准号: 0822010
• 负责人: Robert Bornstein
• 金额: $ 13.57万
• 依托单位: Adelphi University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-09-01 至 2010-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0822010&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Mental; Imagery; Mere; Exposure; Effect

The mere exposure effect -- increased liking for a stimulus following repeated exposure to that stimulus -- is one of the most well-established phenomena in social psychology. Mere exposure effects have numerous real-world applications, enhancing attitudes regarding members of unfamiliar ethnic and racial groups, diminishing negative reactions to feared stimuli (for example, spiders, snakes), and helping shape both aesthetic preferences and food preferences in a variety of situations and contexts. Although the existence of the mere exposure effect is well-established, the processes underlying the effect remain elusive. Given that exposure effects can persist undiminished for extended periods (sometimes several weeks or longer) following stimulus exposures, a key component of the mere exposure effect may be the formation of a mental image of the merely exposed stimulus which is encoded in long-term memory and retrieved at a later date. The objectives of this program of research are to explore the psychological and neurological processes that underlie the exposure effect by examining the role of mental imagery in shaping responses to merely exposed visual stimuli. Experiments are designed to determine whether manipulating various features of mental images of merely exposed stimuli (for example, objects, animals, photographs of people) alter the effect in meaningful ways. Separate sets of experiments test the hypotheses that (1) manipulations that have been shown to alter the latency of mental imagery judgments produce parallel changes in the latency of liking ratings of merely exposed stimuli; and (2) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) assessed cortical activation patterns produced during evaluative ratings of merely-exposed stimuli are consistent with those predicted by the mental imagery framework. By delineating the processes that underlie the mere exposure effect this program of research will set the stage for continued application of mere exposure methods and findings to real-world problems and issues such as fear acquisition and reduction, attitude formation and change, and stereotype- and prejudice-reduction.

单纯的暴露效应--在反复暴露于刺激物后对刺激物的喜爱增加--是社会心理学中最成熟的现象之一。 纯粹的暴露效应有许多现实世界的应用，增强对陌生种族和种族群体成员的态度，减少对恐惧刺激（例如蜘蛛，蛇）的负面反应，并在各种情况和背景下帮助塑造审美偏好和食物偏好。 虽然单纯暴露效应的存在是公认的，但该效应背后的过程仍然难以捉摸。 鉴于暴露效应可以在刺激暴露后的较长时间内（有时是几周或更长时间）持续不减，单纯暴露效应的一个关键组成部分可能是形成一个仅暴露刺激的心理图像，该图像编码在长期记忆中，并在稍后的日期检索。 该研究计划的目标是通过检查心理意象在形成对仅仅暴露的视觉刺激的反应中的作用，探索暴露效应背后的心理和神经过程。 实验的目的是确定是否操纵各种特征的心理图像仅仅暴露的刺激（例如，对象，动物，人的照片）改变的效果在有意义的方式。 单独的实验组测试的假设，（1）已被证明可以改变心理意象判断的潜伏期的操作产生平行的变化，在仅仅暴露的刺激喜欢评级的潜伏期;和（2）功能磁共振成像（fMRI）评估的皮质激活模式，在仅仅暴露的刺激的评价评级是一致的预测的心理意象框架。 通过描述单纯暴露效应背后的过程，本研究计划将为继续将单纯暴露方法和研究结果应用于现实世界的问题和问题，如恐惧的获得和减少，态度的形成和改变，以及刻板印象和偏见的减少。