It has been widely reported that repetitive stimulus material can produce mere exposure effect, and there are quite a few studies that have not found the existence of this effect, and the results of mere exposure effect are still controversial. In this study, we used Chinese neutral words and negative words as stimulus material, in preference forced choice judgement phase, we compared the differences of the ERP amplitude and latency caused by paired-words that showed the same number of times and paired-words that showed the different number of times. These results showed that the difference between neutral words and negative words was mainly in N120, P200 and N500 component. During the recognition judgement phase, we compared the ERP amplitude differences generated by the presented and not presented paired-words, we could find out that the differences between negative and neutral words was mainly showed in N120, P200 and LPC component. These results suggested that negative words and neutral words had different mere exposure effects, more importantly, the recognition was not necessary for generating the mere exposure effect, but it was the reason that hindered the production of mere exposure effect, these results could be explained by the hygienemotivational factors of mere exposure effects.

mere exposure effect, preference, divided attention, late positive component (LPC)