An analysis of perceptual fluency and sexuality schemas: the effect on ratings of relatedness and processing speed
Date
2016-05-20
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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
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Keywords
Perceptual fluency, schema, sexuality, Implicit Association Test