Investigating the mechanisms by which selective attention affects subsequent preferences and choice

In two experiments, we investigated two untested assumptions regarding the mechanism by which selective attention during search affects subsequent preferences for objects. First, we tested whether an increase in visual competition during search increases preferences for relevant objects and decreases preferences for irrelevant objects subsequent to search. Second, we tested whether searching for objects increases the perceived fluency to process relevant objects and decreases the perceived fluency to process irrelevant objects. Our results show that search can affect relevant and irrelevant objects differently. Selective attention increased preferences for target objects subsequent to search, whereas selective attention did not affect preferences for distractors. Furthermore, our results indicate that searching for a target object increased the perceived fluency for this target object during choice, whereas ignoring a distractor product blocked mere exposure effects. Contrary to assumptions made in previous research, we found no indication that the competition for visual resources during search is linked to preferences for targets or distractors.