Figure 1.

Schematic description of the experimental paradigm. After the presentation of fixation, one of these three letter sounds was presented and participants were asked to imagine the corresponding face vividly and then press the “Space” bar in the self-paced interval. For the no imagery associated sound, participants were asked to simply press “Space” once hearing the letter. After a random delay between 800 and 1200 ms, one of these two real faces was presented for 200 ms and participants were asked to press one of the two buttons according to which of the two faces presented on the screen. After the response a visual noise mask with duration of 200 ms was presented before the next trial began.