Visual and tactile cross-modal mere exposure effects

How material sensory properties and individual differences influence the haptic aesthetic appeal of visually presented stimuli

Touch plays a crucial role for humans. Despite its centrality in sensory experiences, the field of haptic aesthetics is underexplored. So far, existing research has revealed that preferences in the haptic domain are related to stimulus properties and the Gestalt laws of grouping. Additionally, haptic aesthetics is influenced by top-down processes, e.g., stimulus familiarity, and is likely to be modulated by personality and expertise. To further our understanding of these influences on haptic aesthetic appraisal, the current study investigated the imagined haptic aesthetic appeal of visually presented material surfaces, considering the role of haptic expertise, Need for touch, personality traits. The results revealed a positive influence of familiarity, simplicity, smoothness, warmth, lightness, dryness, slipperiness and a negative influence of complexity on individuals' aesthetic responses. While the study failed to support the predicted influence of Need for touch and haptic expertise on aesthetic responses, results did reveal an influence of openness to experience, conscientiousness and neuroticism. Despite the limitations related to the indirect stimuli presentation (vision only), the findings contribute to the relatively unexplored role of bottom-up and top-down features in haptic aesthetics that might be incorporated into the design of consumers' products to better meet their preferences.

“The Theater of the Mind”: The Effect of Radio Exposure on TV Advertising

Contemporary society requires communication strategies that integrate different media channels in order to improve advertising performance. Currently, there are not many scientific research studies of the various mass media, comparing the results of audiovisual advertising to purely audio or visual messages aimed at detecting the best combination of media, especially from a neurophysiological perspective. This study aims to investigate the effects of previous exposure to an advertisement via radio on the consumers’ response to the same advertisement shown on television (TV) or as a banner on a website. A total of seventy participants in a between-subjects experiment watched several television commercials during the advertising break of a documentary or saw some banners during a web surfing task. Half were first exposed to the same advertisements via radio. The results have shown that participants who previously listened to the radio advertisements spent a longer time looking at the brand and had a higher engagement when watching the same advertisements on television. Moreover, they had a different kind of visual attention to the website banners. This pattern of results indicates the effect of mere exposure—that is, the exposure to a radio advertisement enhances the effectiveness of the same advertisement via television or web, offering useful insights for media planning campaigns. Even if mere exposure has been extensively studied, cross-media research is scarcely explored, whereas this study detected the effects of mere exposure in a cross-media communication strategy, showing that it can be measured through psychophysiological methods.

The mere exposure effect in the domain of haptics

Background

Zajonc showed that the attitude towards stimuli that one had been previously exposed to is more positive than towards novel stimuli. This mere exposure effect (MEE) has been tested extensively using various visual stimuli. Research on the MEE is sparse, however, for other sensory modalities.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We used objects of two material categories (stone and wood) and two complexity levels (simple and complex) to test the influence of exposure frequency (F0 = novel stimuli, F2 = stimuli exposed twice, F10 = stimuli exposed ten times) under two sensory modalities (haptics only and haptics & vision). Effects of exposure frequency were found for high complex stimuli with significantly increasing liking from F0 to F2 and F10, but only for the stone category. Analysis of “Need for Touch” data showed the MEE in participants with high need for touch, which suggests different sensitivity or saturation levels of MEE.

Conclusions/Significance

This different sensitivity or saturation levels might also reflect the effects of expertise on the haptic evaluation of objects. It seems that haptic and cross-modal MEEs are influenced by factors similar to those in the visual domain indicating a common cognitive basis.

The impact of subliminal haptic perception on the preference discrimination of roughness and compliance

It is well known that unaware exposure to a visual stimulus increases the preferability of the associated object. In this study we examine whether the same phenomena occur for haptic stimuli. Using a touch-enabled virtual environment, we tested whether people that touch two virtual surfaces, which differ by imperceptible differences in roughness or compliance, tend to choose rougher or smoother, softer or stiffer surfaces, in accordance with their natural tendency. In forced choice preference tests, participants were first asked to choose between two surfaces that differ by roughness/stiffness. Stimuli strength was above the aware perception limit. Then, the same test was performed for differences in stimuli strength, which was below the limit of awareness. Finally, we carried out a recognition test: participants were asked to choose between the surfaces presented in the previous step, and point at the smoother or softer surface, respectively. For each stimulus, two groups of 26 subjects participated. Results show that in the unaware preference tests, participants selected the surface in accordance with the aware preference tests, with significant difference from chance (59.5%, and 60.2% for roughness and compliance as a stimulus, respectively). The recognition tests in both experiments were at chance level, suggesting that participants were unaware of the difference in stimuli. These results show that subliminal perception of roughness and compliance strength affects texture preferences. Research data suggest that the amygdala is central in regulating emotional processing of visual stimuli, even if it is presented subliminally. Thus, the results of this study raise the question whether the amygdala also modulates emotional haptic stimuli when they are subliminally perceived.

Alexithymia tendencies and mere exposure alter social approachability judgments

People have a fundamental motivation for social connection and social engagement, but how do they decide whom to approach in ambiguous social situations? Subjective feelings often influence such decisions, but people vary in awareness of their feelings. We evaluated two opposing hypotheses based on visual familiarity effects and emotional awareness on social approachability judgments. These hypotheses differ in their interpretation of the familiarity or mere exposure effect with either an affective or cognitive interpretation. The responses of our 128-student sample supported the cognitive interpretation. Lower emotional awareness or higher alexithymia was associated with higher approachability judgments to familiarized faces and lower approachability judgments to novel faces. These findings were independent of the Big Five personality factors. The results indicate that individual differences in emotional awareness should be integrated into social decision-making models. The results also suggest that cognitive-perceptual alterations may underlie the poorer social outcomes associated with alexithymia.