This neuroimaging evidence implicates separate neurocognitive processes operative in explicit stimulus recognition versus implicit conceptual priming.

Resolving current theoretical controversy on relationships between familiarity and conceptual priming requires a clarification of their neural substrates.

Prior experience can also implicitly influence subsequent processing through a memory phenomenon termed conceptual priming, which occurs without explicit awareness of recognition.

We examined electrophysiological correlates of conceptual priming with 180 celebrity faces to determine whether or not they resemble electrophysiological correlates of explicit memory.

Conceptual priming was indexed by positive brain potentials over frontal regions from approximately 250 to 500 ms.