In the single-store model of memory, the enhanced recall for the last items in a free-recall task (i.e., the recency effect) is understood to reflect a general property of memory rather than a separate short-term store. This interpretation is supported by the finding of a long-term recency effect under conditions that eliminate the contribution from the short-term store. In this article, evidence is reviewed showing that recency effects in the short and long terms have different properties, and it is suggested that 2 memory components are needed to account for the recency effects: an episodic contextual system with changing context and an activation-based short-term memory buffer that drives the encoding of item-context associations. A neurocomputational model based on these 2 components is shown to account for previously observed dissociations and to make novel predictions, which are confirmed in a set of experiments.

Face perception, recognition and priming were examined with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and scalp event-related potentials (ERPs). Face perception was associated with haemodynamic increases in regions including bilateral fusiform and right superior temporal cortices, and a right posterior negativity (N170), most likely generated in the superior temporal region. Face recognition was associated with haemodynamic increases in fusiform, medial frontal and orbitofrontal cortices, and with a frontocentral positivity from 550 ms poststimulus. Face repetition was associated with a positivity from 400 to 600 ms and behavioural priming. Repetition of familiar faces was also associated with earlier onset of the ERP familiarity effect, and haemodynamic decreases in fusiform cortex. These data support a multi-component model of face-processing, with priming arising from more than one stage.

The effects of familiarity on selective attention for the identity and expression of faces were tested using Garner's speeded-classification task. In 2 experiments, participants classified expression (or identity) of familiar and unfamiliar faces while the irrelevant dimension of identity (or expression) was either held constant (baseline condition) or varied randomly (filtering condition). Selective attention was measured by the difference in performance between these 2 conditions. Failure of selective attention was larger for familiar than for unfamiliar faces. In addition, failure of selective attention was found both for identity and for expression judgments. These findings show that familiarity increases (he perceptual integrality between identity and expression, and they question previous studies arguing that identity judgments are always resistant to irrelevant variations in expression. The authors suggest that the systems processing identity and expression are interconnected in that facial identity serves as a reference from which expressions can be more easily derived.

Repetition priming for faces was examined in a sex-judgment task given at test. Priming was found for edited, hair-removed photos of unfamiliar and familiar faces after a single presentation at study. Priming was also observed for the edited photos when study and test faces were different exemplars. Priming was not observed, however, when sex judgments were made at test to photos of complete, hair-included faces. These findings were interpreted by assuming that, for edited faces, internal features are attended, thereby activating face-recognition units that support performance. With complete faces, however, participants provided speeded judgments based primarily on the hairstyle. It is suggested that, for both familiar and unfamiliar faces, a common locus exists for the processing of the identity of a face and its sex. A single face-recognition model for the processing of familiar and unfamiliar faces is advocated.In this article, themes from the implicit-memory literature were imported to improve our understanding of the processes involved in face recognition. Standard face-recognition models suggest that a benefit from prior exposure of the face should be observed only when information about the identity of the face is extracted (e.g., "Is the face that of a famous person?", "Is the face that of an actor?"). In contrast, we suggest that the extraction of visual facial information (e.g., the sex or emotion of the face) should also benefit from such prior exposure. Nonetheless, on the basis of notions developed in the implicit-memory literature, we argue that the extraction and retrieval of visual facial information can benefit from prior exposure of the face only if the stimulus is processed in its entirety, but not if processing neglects the perceptual whole. The respective predictions from the two literatures will be put to an empirical test.On implicit-memory tests, memory is indexed by facilitation in performance that results from prior experience. To illustrate, in the speeded familiarity task, participants are presented during study with a series of familiar faces (e.g., a photo of Bill Clinton). Then, during test, they are presented with a second series that includes both studied and unstudied familiar and unfamiliar faces. Typically, participants decide that a face is familiar more accurately and more quickly if that face was previously shown in the first series (cf. Bruce & Valentine, 1985;A. W. Ellis, Flude, Young, & Burton, 1996). This facilitation in performance to studied as comYonatan Goshen-Gottstein and Tzvi Ganel, Department of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel.Portions of this article were part of Tzvi Ganel's doctoral dissertation. We thank Vicki Bruce, Mike Burton, Robert E. Lubow, Dafna Bergerbest, and Yoav Aryeh for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. We also thank Sagit Ganel for help with the graphic design of the stimuli.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yonatan Goshen-Gottstein, Department of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, R...

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In this article, we explored the relationship between the processing of facial expression and the processing of gaze direction. In Experiment 1, participants were unable to ignore gaze while classifying expression-or to ignore expression while classifying gaze. This suggests that the processing of expression and the processing of gaze are interdependent. In Experiment 2, the faces were inverted to isolate configural from part-based contributions to this interdependence. Inversion had a striking effect on expression judgments, which could now be processed independently of gaze, but not on gaze judgments, which were still influenced by expression, even when photos that contained only the eye region of faces were presented (Experiment 4). In Experiment 3 the processing of expression was found to be sensitive to even small variations in the direction of gaze. These results suggest that the processing underlying judgments of expression is configural and entails an obligatory computation of gaze direction. Judgments of gaze direction, however, are carried out in a part-based manner using local features around the eyes and are insensitive to the configural aspects of facial processing.

According to current face-recognition models, sex (gender) and identity of faces are processed in independent routes. Using Garner's speeded-classification task, the authors provide evidence that sex and identity are processed within a single route. In 4 experiments, participants judged the sex or the familiarity of faces while the other dimension remained constant or varied randomly. The results of Experiments 1, 2, and 4 showed that participants could not selectively attend to either sex or familiarity without being influenced by the other, irrelevant dimension. Thus, identity and sex are integral dimensions. Experiment 3 provided evidence that when sex judgments are based on hairstyle heuristics, false separability can emerge. The findings support the claim that identity and sex are processed within a single route.

A fundamental challenge in the study of learning and memory is to understand the role of existing knowledge in the encoding and retrieval of new episodic information. The importance of prior knowledge in memory is demonstrated in the congruency effect—the robust finding wherein participants display better memory for items that are compatible, rather than incompatible, with their pre-existing semantic knowledge. Despite its robustness, the mechanism underlying this effect is not well understood. In four studies, we provide evidence that demonstrates the privileged explanatory power of the elaboration-integration account over alternative hypotheses. Furthermore, we question the implicit assumption that the congruency effect pertains to the truthfulness/sensibility of a subject-predicate proposition, and show that congruency is a function of semantic relatedness between item and context words.