sequences (FWWF-WFFW or WFFW-FWWF). Ratings for word frequency (Kucera and Francis, 1967) and concreteness (Paivio et al., 1968) were balanced across word blocks. Likert scale ratings of attractiveness (+3: very attractive or pleasant; −3: very unattractive or unpleasant) and distinctiveness (+3: very distinctive or recognizable; −3: very undistinctive) as well as categorizations of gender and race for all 674 faces were initially obtained from seven healthy adults, who did not participate in the current study. These mean ratings and categorizations were used to select 320 face stimuli yielding medium ratings and unequivocal categorizations, and were also used to balance the stimuli according to these criteria across face blocks. There were no item repetitions in each task except for the new-old item pairs. Item sequence and task order assignments were counterbalanced across participants.
