INVESTIGATION THE RELATION BETWEEN IMAGERY AND PERCEPTION - EVIDENCE FROM FACE PRIMING

The relation between imagery and perception was investigated in face p riming. Two experiences are reported in which subjects either saw or i magined the faces of celebrities. They were later given a speeded perc eptual test (familiarity judgement to pictures of celebrities) or a sp eeded imagery test (in which they were told the names of celebrities a nd asked to make a decision about their appearance). Seeing faces prim ed the perceptual test, and imaging faces primed the imagery test; how ever, there was no priming between seeing and imaging faces. These res ults show that perception and imagery can be dissociated in normal sub jects. In two further experiments, we examined the effects of imaging faces on a subsequent face-naming task and on a task requiring familia rity judgements to partial faces. Both these tasks were facilitated by prior imaging of faces. These results are discussed in relation to th ose of McDermott & Roediger (1994), who found that imagery promoted ob ject priming in a perceptual test involving naming partial line drawin gs. The implications for models of face recognition are also discussed .