A review of the theoretical models of processing fluency

Abstract

It is known that the ease of processing induces positive judgments in a wide variety of tasks (the fluency effect). The authors reviewed eight theoretical models of the fluency effect and discussed the consistency between each model and current evidence. The discussion was based on the three perspectives that fluency models should explain: (a) Why the effect's influence on judgments is positive; (b) Whether basic information on the effect is single or multiple; and (c) How basic information can consistently influence a wide variety of judgments (Unkelbach & Greifeneder, 2013). Evidence from previous studies supported models assuming that positive information automatically affects affective judgments and that neutral information influences cognitive judgments through the interpretation process. The authors discuss how previous models can be integrated.