Not to be and then to be: Visual representation of ignored unfamiliar faces

Negative priming, the increase in response time and/or errors to targets pr eviously encountered as distracters, is explained by inhibitory mechanisms that block the access of distracter representations to response systems. Th e processing of unfamiliar human faces was investigated using negative prim ing. Observers viewed a row of faces to decide whether 2 target faces were the same or different. Response latencies were longer when 1 or both target s had appeared as distracters on the immediately preceding trial-evidence t hat never-before seen faces are represented and require inhibition. Respons e latencies were shorter when face targets had appeared as distracters, eit her corrupted with high-frequency noise or contrast inverted-evidence that representations are facilitated. Finally, response latencies remained unalt ered when face targets had appeared as upside-down distractors-evidence tha t not all distracter representations afford response priming. The visual sy stem indeed represents ignored unfamiliar faces, but blocks these represent ations only if they vie with targets for the control of action.