Exposure effects and affective responses to music

Abstract

Radio programming appears to follow a theory of mere exposure, where repeated exposure to a stimulus results in enhanced positive affect toward that stimulus. Although mere exposure has received substantial empirical support, other studies of exposure to music suggest that an inverted—U better describes the exposure‐affect relationship. This study manipulated exposure to rock and popular songs in a counterbalanced design. Subjects heard manipulated songs at frequencies of 1, 8, 16, and 24. An inverted—U relationship was found, with a small but significant effect size that held when controlling for a number of stimulus and subject variables. The collative variables of subjective complexity and subjective novelty were hypothesized to interact with exposure in determining affective evaluations; this was not supported.