Sematic diagram of a typical trial during the blind choice task.

<p>Participants were required to press a key to initiate a trial (A), followed by a presentation of fixation for 1 s (B). Next, two identical dummy faces were presented for 10 ms (C) and followed by masking stimuli presented for 1 s (D). After the dummy faces were presented, participants were asked to respond in accordance with an instruction (e.g., “CHOOSE” represents to choose a preferred face). Once completed the response, target faces were presented (F). Note that participants were instructed that target faces were presented two times within a trial, one in C and another in F.