Electrophysiological correlates of masked face priming

• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.12.003
• Publication Date: 2008-01-30T15:11:04Z
• Authors: R.N. Henson; E. Mouchlianitis; W.J. Matthews; S. Kouider
• Keywords: Subliminal stimuli; Repetition priming; Priming (agriculture); Repetition (rhetorical device)

Using a sandwich-masked priming paradigm with faces, we report two ERP effects that appear to reflect different levels of subliminal face processing. These repetition dissociate in their onset, scalp topography, and sensitivity familiarity. The "early" effect occurred between 100 150 ms, was maximally negative-going over lateral temporoparietal channels, found for both familiar unfamiliar faces. "late" 300 500 positive-going centroparietal only early resembled our previous fMRI data from the same paradigm; late behavioural found, form faster reaction times make fame judgments about primed relative unprimed None or appeared explicable by measure participants' ability see primes. showed some whether photograph repeated, but could remain reliable across photographs, did not attributable low-level pixelwise overlap prime probe photograph. functional significance these is discussed relation unconscious perception