Research in
cognitive neuroscience and psychology has shown that processing fluency influences different kinds of judgments. For instance, perceptual fluency can contribute to the experience of familiarity when fluent processing is attributed to the past. Repeating the presentation of a stimulus, also known as
priming, is one method for enhancing fluency. Jacoby and Dallas in 1981 argued that items from past experience are processed more fluently. participants were presented symbols which consisted of highly familiar symbols, less familiar symbols and novel symbols. Participants were required to report whether they had encountered any of the symbols presented before the experiment. A 35 millisecond flash preceded each symbol, in which the same, different or no symbol was flashed. It was found that the brief flash of stimulus boosted the fluency of the target item. When the same symbol was flashed, participants’ ratings of having encountered the symbol previously increased. This example illustrates that fluent processing can induce a feeling of familiarity. Fluency and familiarity have been shown to lead to the mere exposure effect. Research has found that repetition of a stimulus can lead to fluent processing which leads to a feeling of liking. In this experiment, participants were presented with unfamiliar faces either three or nine times. After presentation, pairs of faces were shown to participants, each consisting of an old and new face. Results showed that participants gave higher rates of liking to the repeated faces. The mere exposure effect is eliminated if fluent processing is disrupted. Topolinski et al. (2014) explained that the fluency created by pronunciation plays a vital role in increasing fondness for a stimulus. In the experiment, There is significant evidence that when consumers are presented with multiple choices, they will view objects more positively and more aesthetically pleasing when surrounded by congruent imagery. While consumers enjoy a moderate source of incongruity, too much disorder and unfamiliarity lead to feelings of being overwhelmed. participants were presented with statements, some of which were true and the rest being false. Half these statements were presented in high contrast colours and the other half were presented in low contrast colours. Independent of truth, participants judged the high contrast statements as true. Participants were also quicker to make judgements about the high contrast statements compared to the low contrast statements. The contrast differences in statements increased fluency. Fluency has been shown to affect judgements of humour. In one study, participants were presented with jokes which were in easy to read or hard to read fonts. Participants were asked to rate which jokes they believed were more humorous. Participants gave higher ratings to jokes in easy to read fonts. It has been predicted that the jokes in easy to read fonts feel fluent, as they are easier to pronounce and this results in higher ratings. The fluent processing has been misattributed to the humour of the statement. As high processing fluency indicates that the interaction of a person with the environment goes smoothly, a person does not need to pay particular attention to the environment. By contrast, low processing fluency means that there are problems in the interaction with the environment which requires more attention and an analytical processing style to solve the problem. Indeed, people process information more shallowly when processing fluency is high and employ an analytical thinking style when processing fluency is low. A 2010 study demonstrated that the long-known effect of illegible handwriting in an essay on grading is mediated by a lack of processing fluency (and not, for example, negative stereotypes related to illegible writing). ==Applications==