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B M Flude

Publications and source records attributed to B M Flude.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

Two loci of repetition priming in the recognition of familiar faces.

Four experiments examining the repetition priming of familiar face recognition are reported. The experiments showed that the speed of deciding whether a face is familiar was facilitated by prior presentation of the face, but not by reading the written name or by producing the name in response to a definition. In contrast, reading names and producing names to definitions both primed subsequent naming of the corresponding faces (Experiments 1 and 2). Face naming was primed more by face naming than by either familiarity decisions or naming from description (Experiments 3 and 4). The authors propose that repetition priming of familiar face recognition occurs at 2 distinct loci. The first involves the perceptual recognition of a face as familiar and is domain-specific. The second involves name retrieval and is susceptible to both within- and cross-domain priming.

Adult↗

The nature of semantic priming effects in the recognition of familiar people.

We report a series of experiments examining the nature of semantic priming effects in the recognition of familiar people. Experiment 1 showed that facilitation of the recognition of familiar target faces by related face primes occurs within the recognition system, since there is no equivalent priming when subjects are asked only to determine the sex of the target faces, rather than to recognize them as familiar. Experiments 2 and 3 examined the basis of the facilitatory effect of related primes, and showed that both for familiarity decision (Expt 2 and Expt 3) and face naming (Expt 3) tasks it is primarily based on close association of the prime and target people, rather than common membership of a semantic category. This associative component of semantic priming was further explored in Expt 4, which showed that cross-domain priming from face primes to target names was present for associated prime-target pairs, but was maximal when prime and target were the face (prime) and name (target) of the same person. The results of the experiments are consistent with the interactive activation simulation developed by Burton, Bruce & Johnston (1990), and set constraints which will have to be met by any other plausible account of semantic priming.

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Impaired discrimination of familiar from unfamiliar faces.

We report investigations of the face processing abilities of J.T., a man who had suffered a right hemisphere stroke. J.T. showed a marked problem in discriminating between familiar and unfamiliar faces, with no corresponding problem in discriminating familiar from unfamiliar names. The problem with faces was still found 2 years after the stroke, but had resolved at long-term follow-up (9 years post stroke). When given unlimited time to respond, J.T. did not show any problem in recognising familiar faces, but tended to think that he recognised unfamiliar faces. When under time pressure, however, J.T. also failed to recognise a number of familiar faces which he could readily identify when the time pressure was removed. J.T.'s ability to remember a face and to think of other people who might be similar in appearance was affected by whether or not the face seemed familiar or unfamiliar to him. Hence, whatever underlay the spurious sense of familiarity was sufficient to produce real differences between the way in which genuinely unfamiliar and spuriously familiar faces were seen, leading us to suggest that his impaired discrimination of unfamiliar from familiar faces reflected a malfunction of face recognition units.

Aged↗

Repetition priming and proper name processing. Do common names and proper names prime each other?

Three experiments are reported in which a repetition priming technique was used to investigate whether recognition of a person's surname which is also a known word (e.g. Baker) activates the lexical representation that mediates word recognition. Experiment 1 showed that a familiarity decision to familiar full names produced an effect of repetition priming on subsequent lexical decision to words that were presented in the initial task as surnames. Experiment 2 demonstrated that, conversely, a lexical decision primed subsequent familiarity decision to full names involving the same word. Experiment 3 showed that repeating the same decision during the initial and test phases did not produce a larger repetition priming effect than that obtained when the task at test differed from the prime task (name familiarity decision vs lexical decision or vice versa). The results are interpreted as support for the view that repetition priming is due to repeated activation of representations that are accessed by both common names and proper names.

Adult↗

Repetition priming and face processing: priming occurs within the system that responds to the identity of a face.

A familiar stimulus that has recently been recognized will be recognized a second time more quickly and more accurately than if it had not been primed by the earlier encounter. This is the phenomenon of "repetition priming". Four experiments on repetition priming of face recognition suggest that repetition priming is a consequence of changes within the system that responds to the familiarity of a stimulus. In Experiment 1, classifying familiar faces by occupation facilitated subsequent responses to the same faces in a familiarity decision task (Is this face familiar or unfamiliar?) but not in an expression decision task (Is this face smiling or unsmiling?) or a sex decision task (Is this face male or female?). In Experiment 2, familiar faces showed repetition priming in a familiarity decision task, regardless of whether a familiarity judgment or an expression judgment had been required when the faces were first encountered. Expression decisions to familiar faces again failed to show repetition priming. In Experiment 3, familiar faces showed repetition priming in a familiarity decision task, regardless of whether a familiarity judgment or a sex judgment had been asked for when the faces were first encountered. Sex decisions to familiar faces again failed to show repetition priming. In Experiment 4, familiarity decisions continued to show repetition priming when a brief presentation time with encouragement to respond while the face was displayed reduced response latencies to speeds comparable to those for sex and expression judgments in Experiments 1 to 3. The results are problematic for theories that propose that repetition priming is mediated by episodic records of previous acts of stimulus encoding.

Adult↗

Face processing and name retrieval in an anomic aphasic: names are stored separately from semantic information about familiar people.

Recent models of face recognition have proposed that the names of familiar people are accessed from a lexical memory store that is distinct from the semantic memory store that holds information about such things as a familiar person's occupation and personality. Names are nevertheless retrieved via the semantic system. If such models are correct, then it should be possible for a patient to have full access to semantic information about familiar people while being unable to name many of them. We report this pattern in an anomic aphasic patient, EST, whose inability to recall the names of familiar people occurred in the context of a general word-finding problem. EST showed a preserved ability to access semantic information from familiar faces, voices, and spoken and written names and to process facial expressions, but he was unable to name many familiar faces. These findings are compatible with current models of face processing and challenge models which propose that names are stored alongside semantic information in a general-purpose long-term memory store.

Anomia↗

Face-name interference.

Interference effects between the processing of simultaneously presented photographs of faces of familiar people and printed names of familiar people were investigated. Printed names interfered with identifying faces, whereas faces did not interfere with saying printed names (Experiments 1 and 3). In contrast, faces interfered more with name categorization than names interfered with face categorization (Experiments 2 and 4). Despite a priori reasons as to why faces might be thought to possess functional properties different from those of other visual objects, the observed effects are comparable to those found in object-word interference studies, with photographs of faces behaving like pictures of objects and printed people's names behaving like printed names of objects. In face naming tasks, the presence of related names produced more interference than did the presence of unrelated names (Experiment 1). This effect was examined in greater detail in Experiment 3, where we found that the effect arises when the face and the name belong to people of similar appearance. An effect of common category membership was not found in Experiment 3. Experiment 5, however, showed that names of people highly associated with the person whose face is presented also produce more interference than do names of unrelated people.

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Matching familiar and unfamiliar faces on internal and external features.

Two experiments are reported in which subjects were asked to match a photograph of a complete face and a simultaneously presented photograph of internal or external features of a face, deciding whether or not the two photographs were pictures of the same person. In experiment 1 'same' pairs were derived from different pictures of the same face, so that subjects had to match the faces and not the particular photographs used. Matches based on internal features were found to be faster for familiar than for unfamiliar faces, whereas there was no difference in reaction time between matches based on the external features of familiar and unfamiliar faces. Faster matching of internal features of familiar faces was found to hold equally for pairs of photographs that differed in orientation of the face or in facial expression. In experiment 2 'same' pairs were derived from the same photographs, which gave subjects the choice of matching on the basis of the features of the depicted faces or matching the photographs. Reaction times were faster than in experiment 1, and there were no differences between familiar and unfamiliar faces. The study confirms reports of differential saliency of the internal features of familiar faces, and shows that this only holds when stimuli are treated as faces. The finding thus reflects properties of structural rather than pictorial codes.

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