Neural correlates of priming and adaptation in familiar face perception

Priming (PR) and adaptation-related aftereffects (AEs) are two phenomena when recent perceptual experiences alter face perception. While AEs are often reflected in contrastive perceptual biases, PR typically leads to behavioural facilitation. Previous research suggests that both phenomena modulate broadly similar components of the event-related potentials (ERPs). To disentangle the underlying neural mechanisms of PR and AE, we induced both effects within the same subjects and paradigm. We presented pairs of stimuli, where the first (S1) was a famous face (identity A, B or C), a morph between two famous faces (50/50% A/B), or a Fourier phase randomized face (as a control stimulus matched for low-level visual information) and the second (S2) was a face drawn from morph continua between identity A and B. Participants' performance in matching S2s to either A or B revealed contrastive aftereffects for ambiguous S2 faces, which were more likely perceived as identity B following the presentation of A and vice versa. Unambiguous S2 faces, however, showed PR, with significantly shorter response times, as well as higher classification performance, for identity-congruent than for incongruent S1-S2 pairs. Analyses of the simultaneously recorded ERPs revealed clear categorical adaptation at around 155-205 msec post-stimulus onset. We also found amplitude modulations for unambiguous S2 faces following identity-congruent S1 faces, related to PR, starting at 90 msec and being the most pronounced at around 205-255 msec. For ambiguous S2 faces, we also observed an ERP effect at around 205-255 msec that was correlated with behavioural AEs. Our results show that face PR and AEs are present simultaneously within a single paradigm, depending on the ambiguity of S2 faces and/or on the similarity of S1 and S2, and suggest that exclusive mechanisms might underlie both PR and AEs and that object-category and identity processing might run in parallel during face processing.