Conflicts Between Priming and Explicit Memory: A Question of Fluency?

Abstract A basic distinction in theories of human memory is between explicit and implicit types of memory. However, little is known, how these forms of memory interact. An interesting test case is the repetition priming effect for unfamiliar faces in familiarity decisions on the target, which is highly variable and may even reverse. Here, we tested the hypothesis that this reversed priming effect may be due to conflicts between implicit and explicit memory. After replicating the reverse priming effect, three different manipulations were effective in diminishing it. We suggest that each of these manipulations diminished the ambiguity regarding the source of priming-induced fluency of target processing. Event-related potentials were consistent with the conflict account but insensitive to the experimental manipulations. Our findings argue against a strictly independent view of explicit and implicit memory and support an interactive account of different types of memory.