Familiarity from exposure frequency cannot explain the name-letter effect

Evidence

It might be supposed that greater frequency of exposure to initial letters than other name letters can explain why the name letter effect is strongest for initials. However, this interpretation is implausible both because empirical exposure frequency effects asymptote at much lower frequencies than the huge frequencies characteristic of letters of the alphabet, and any frequency advantage for initials over other name letters must be quite small when computed as a percentage difference in total exposures to the letters. — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition, 148

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: this is a plausible naive confound (mere exposure) neatly dispatched on quantitative grounds — does any later work revive familiarity explanations through a different mechanism?
• XREF: connects to: Mere exposure effects strengthen as memory for exposures is reduced.

Broader Connections

• Mere exposure effects strengthen as memory for exposures is reduced. #complicates (0.80)