Exploring the subjective feeling of fluency

Author(s)
Michael Forster, Helmut Leder, Ulrich Ansorge
Abstract

According to the processing fluency theory, higher ease of processing a stimulus leads to higher feelings of fluency and more positive evaluations. However, it is unclear whether feelings of fluency are positive or an unspecific activation and whether feelings of fluency are directly attributed to the stimulus even without much positive feelings. In two experiments, we tested how variations in the ease of processing influenced feelings of fluency and affect, in terms of evaluations (Exp. 1) and physiological responses (Exp. 2). Higher feelings of fluency were associated with more positive stimulus ratings and did not affect stimulus arousal ratings, but perceivers' feelings showed higher felt arousal ratings and left felt valence ratings unaffected. Physiological indices only showed small effects of a subtle positive reaction. These findings show that feelings of fluency can be sources of positive object evaluations, but do not affect one's own positive feelings.

Organisation(s)
Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology
Journal
Experimental Psychology
Volume
63
Pages
45-58
No. of pages
14
ISSN
1618-3169
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1027/1618-3169/a000311
Publication date
01-2016
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
501021 Social psychology, 501001 General psychology, 501011 Cognitive psychology, 501006 Experimental psychology
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Psychology(all), Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/exploring-the-subjective-feeling-of-fluency(3b13b887-141e-4bab-a9e6-a198d228fab3).html