Sequential effect in attractiveness judgement of multiple faces

Abstract

A large number of studies have demonstrated the sequential effect, in which the response in the current trial is assimilated towards that of the immediately preceding trial in a decision making task. However, most previous studies have only examined the effect in situations where the response was given after each stimulus presentation. In this study, we examined whether the sequential effect existed when observers responded after the presentation of two stimuli. After two pictures of male faces were presented successively, participants rated the attractiveness of each face on a 9-point scale. The results showed that the second response was assimilated towards the first (Experiment 1), but the first response contrasted with (shifted away from) the second (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that preceding and succeeding contexts may differentially modulate our decision making.