Encoding and Retrieval Trials.

<p><i>(top)</i> Scenes were presented alone for 2 seconds at the start of each encoding trial. A face was then superimposed on the scene for 5 seconds and participants were instructed to indicate whether the pair was a good fit using a scale from 1–4. There was no time limit imposed on the judgment. <i>(bottom)</i> Each test trial began with the subliminal presentation of a studied scene. The scene was embedded in a masking sequence and participants were instructed to perform an attention task–making a button press when a visible fixation cross was replaced with a vertical or horizontal line segment. The masking sequence shown here was repeated six times, which meant that the scene was presented twelve times in 6 seconds. Following subliminal presentation of the scene, a visible three-face display was presented for 5 seconds and was used to test memory implicitly. At the end of the trial, a visible scene cue (2 seconds) preceded presentation of the same 3-face test display (5 seconds), which was used to test memory explicitly. Controls were yoked to experimental participants so that all of the trial events were the same with the exception of the subliminal scene cue, for which there was not an associate in the corresponding implicit test display.