EFFECTS OF DISTINCTIVENESS, REPETITION AND SEMANTIC PRIMING ON THE RECOGNITION OF FACE FAMILIARITY

Three experiments are reported which provide evidence for the independ ence of effects of repetition from those of distinctiveness and semant ic priming in the recognition of familiar faces. In Experiment 1, repe tition priming is shown to be additive with face distinctiveness in a face familiarity decision task, where subjects make speeded familiarit y decisions to a sequence of famous and unfamiliar faces. Experiment 2 examines the combined effects of distinctiveness and semantic priming . The results suggest that the effect of distinctiveness is additive w ith that of semantic priming. Experiment 3 uses a more powerful design in which effects of distinctiveness and semantic priming were assesse d while all items were repeated three times during the course of the e xperiment. Effects of repetition and distinctiveness were again additi ve, as were effects of repetition and semantic priming. Distinctivenes s and semantic priming were additive at 1000 ms SOA, though appeared t o interact at 250 ms SOA. The results give further evidence for the se paration of the mechanisms of semantic from repetition priming, and fu rthermore suggest that distinctiveness operates at a different locus f rom those of either of the priming mechanisms.