Semantic priming of person recognition: Categorial priming may be a weakerform of the associative priming effect

An interactive activation and competition account (Burton, Bruce, & Johnsto n, 1990) of the semantic priming effect in person recognition studies relie s on the fact that primes and targets (people) have semantic information in common. However, recent investigations into the type of relationship neede d to mediate the semantic priming effect have suggested that the prime and target must be close associates (e.g., Barry, Johnston, & Scanlan, 1998; Yo ung, Flude, Hellawell, & Ellis, 1994). A review of these and similar papers suggests the possibility of a small but non-reliable effect based purely o n categorial relationships. Experiment 1 provided evidence that when partic ipants were asked to make a name familiarity decision it was possible to bo ost this small categorial effect when multiple (four) primes were presented prior to the target name. Results from Experiment 2 indicated that the cat egorial effect was not due to the particular presentation times of the prim es. This boosted categorial effect was shown to cross domains (names to fac es) in Experiment 3 and persist in Experiment 4 when the task involved nami ng the target face. The similarity of the pattern of results produced by th e associative priming effect and this boosted categorial effect suggests th at the two may be due to the same underlying mechanism in semantic memory.