Simultaneous activation of multiple face representations

Despite knowing thousands of different faces, we confuse familiar faces only very rarely. One possibility is that the activation of one stored face representation simultaneously inhibits all other stores representations. Here, we used event-related potentials and individually familiar celebrity faces in immediate repetition priming to test whether it is possible to simultaneously recognise multiple faces. In contrast to the assumption of inhibition, we found that two simultaneously shown facial identities are both recognised when both are presented peripherally, as shown by clear N250r priming effects. However, peripheral faces are not recognised when combined with a relevant central face.