Accuracy of familiarity decisions to famous faces perceived without awareness depends on attitude to the target person and on response latency

Angry and happy faces perceived without awareness: A comparison with the affective impact of masked famous faces

“…Results have already been reported from several experiments on masked famous faces (Stone & Valentine 2004;2005a;c). The present paper will present two experiments investigating the effects of masked emotional faces in the same tasks previously reported for famous faces.…”

“…The discussion will now turn to a comparison of the results of the present study with the results previously reported for positively and negatively evaluated famous persons (Stone & Valentine, 2004;2005a;c). The designs were analogous to those employed in the present study.…”

“…The explicit familiarity detection asked participants to select the visual field in which the famous face had appeared (Stone &Valentine, 2004;2005a). Although participants were unable to become aware of facial familiarity, and by assumption, were unable to become aware of facial identity, explicit familiarity detection was more accurate to positive than negative famous persons.…”

“…Knowledge of a familiar person, including their personality and past behaviours, sets expectations for any future encounter. Though fewer studies have investigated the pre-conscious recognition of facial identity, recent evidence suggests that famous faces can be recognised as specific individuals without awareness of facial identity or familiarity (Banse, 1999;Stone, Valentine & Davis, 2001;Stone & Valentine, 2004;2005a;2005b;2005c). These studies all presented faces for very brief, masked exposures (less than 17ms).…”