An analysis of perceptual fluency and sexuality schemas: the effect on ratings of relatedness and processing speed

Abstract

This study looked at how response times and ratings of relatedness were impacted by congruency and fluency of stimuli. It was predicted that when information was presented in the fluent or congruent conditions, response times would be faster than for information that was presented in the incongruent or disfluent conditions. It was also hypothesized that the slowdown effect associated with incongruent category label pairings would be eliminated through the manipulation of fluency. The prediction was also made that ratings of relatedness would be lower for category labels that were presented disfluently or incongruently than labels presented fluently or congruently. The congruency by fluency interaction displayed support for the first and second hypothesis. There was a significant difference in response times between the Congruent/Fluent and Incongruent/Disfluent conditions in Group 1. Another interesting finding was that the response times for the Congruent/Disfluent and Incongruent/Fluent conditions in Group 2 had no significant difference, indicating that the typical slowdown caused by the incongruent condition had been eliminated. The third hypothesis, related to attribute ratings, was supported by the main effect of congruency and the interaction between congruency and sexuality. These results demonstrated that when presented congruently paired labels were rated as more related than incongruently paired labels. Therefore, these results suggest that fluency can impact response times through the use of the sexuality IAT. Future studies should analyze whether sexuality schemas vary for different ages and whether the current results hold true for different age groups