Abstract
Many researchers have confirmed that repeating presentation of stimuli enhances cognitive/affective evaluation, especially preference, of the stimuli (mere exposure effect). In our study, we aimed to examine the hypothesis that memory representation itself could be changed to having the better impressions by the repeated exposure. If the representation is changed by the repetition, images (distracter) which have better impressions would be confused with original images (target). We used face images with quantitatively manipulating facial impressions regarding elegance. We compared the preferences and recognition memory (hits and false alarms) between the repeated and novel stimuli. As the result, it was suggested that our hypothesis would be supported when the stimuli were subliminally exposed whereas the hypothesis would not be supported when the stimuli were supraliminally exposed.
