TOEFLスピーキング Task 3

The "Mere Exposure Effect" is a psychological phenomenon wherein individuals develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. This effect occurs even when the initial exposure is subliminal—that is, below the threshold of conscious awareness. Researchers have found that repeated, non-reinforced exposure to a stimulus (such as a sound, image, or person) tends to increase positive feelings toward it. The effect is robust across various sensory modalities and has been demonstrated in numerous experimental settings. Importantly, the preference emerges without any conscious recollection of having seen the stimulus before, suggesting that familiarity itself breeds liking, independent of explicit memory.

Professor: Okay, so we’ve talked about the mere exposure effect in theory. Let me give you a classic example to make it concrete. In one well-known study, researchers showed participants a series of simple, meaningless shapes—like irregular polygons—on a screen. Each shape was flashed very quickly, so quickly that participants couldn’t consciously recognize what they had seen. Some shapes were shown only once, while others were shown multiple times, say, ten times. Later, the researchers showed all the shapes again, but this time at a normal speed, and asked participants to rate how much they liked each shape. The result? Participants consistently gave higher “liking” ratings to the shapes they had been exposed to more frequently, even though they had no idea they had seen them before. They couldn’t pick those shapes out of a lineup, but they just felt more positive toward them. That’s the mere exposure effect in action. Now, let me give you another example, this time from real life. Think about advertising. Have you ever noticed that a catchy jingle or a brand logo you see repeatedly—even if you don’t pay attention to it—starts to feel more trustworthy over time? For instance, imagine you’re watching a YouTube video, and a banner ad for a new coffee brand appears at the bottom. You don’t click it, you barely register it, but you see it several times across different videos. A few weeks later, you’re at the grocery store, and you see that same coffee brand on the shelf. You’ve never tried it, you know nothing about its quality, but you feel a slight pull toward it—like it’s somehow more familiar, more reliable than the unknown brand next to it. That’s not because you consciously remember the ads; it’s because repeated exposure, even without attention, increased your liking. So, whether it’s abstract shapes in a lab or real-world products, the principle holds: mere familiarity breeds preference.

- Concept: Mere Exposure Effect — repeated exposure to a stimulus, even without conscious awareness, increases liking for it. - Example 1 (lab): Participants rated irregular polygons more positively if they had been flashed multiple times subliminally, despite not consciously recognizing them. - Example 2 (real-life): Repeatedly seeing a brand’s banner ad (without clicking or attending) later made participants feel more favorable toward that brand in a store, without conscious memory of the ads.