Perceptual and perceptual-motor fluency as a basis for affective judgements: Individual differences in motor memory activation

Abstract

The current study investigated the repetition-liking effect as a function of variations in perceptual-motor processing and individual differences in use of perceptual-motor information. Turkish words from earlier repetition-liking research were used in comparing: (1) perceptual (looking) versus perceptual-motor (looking and pronouncing) processing; and (2) perceptual-motor fluency versus disfluency (pronouncing words in a consistent versus an inconsistent manner). Subjects were divided into groups based on an assessment of imagery ability, a variable associated with the tendency to reactivate motor information in memory. Words were liked more after fluent than after disfluent processing, but only in people with good imagery ability. Perceptual-motor fluency had no effect on the repetition-liking effect in poor imagers. It was concluded that perceptual-motor fluency has an important impact on liking judgements, and that this effect is mediated by individual differences in the tendency to automatically activate motor information stored during previous processing of a stimulus.