Final answer:
In an experiment by Zajonc and his colleagues, participants were exposed to brief novel passages of music while they focused on other tasks. The results showed that mere exposure to the music led to liking, demonstrating the mere exposure effect.
Step-by-step explanation:
In an experiment conducted by Zajonc and his colleagues, participants were exposed to brief novel passages of music while they focused their attention on other tasks. The results of the experiment showed that mere exposure to the music led to liking. This means that the more people were exposed to the music, the more they liked it, even when their attention was not fully focused on it.
This phenomenon is known as the mere exposure effect, which suggests that familiarity with a stimulus leads to increased attraction or liking for that stimulus. In the context of the experiment, the participants' exposure to the music passages led to an increased liking or preference for the music, without any conscious effort or deliberate evaluation.
For example, if you were exposed to a specific type of music several times, even if you were not actively paying attention to it, you might find yourself liking that music more over time. This demonstrates the power of mere exposure and how our preferences can be influenced by repeated exposure to certain stimuli, such as music.