Repetition priming and proper name processing. Do common names and proper names prime each other?

Three experiments are reported in which a repetition priming technique was used to investigate whether recognition of a person's surname which is also a known word (e.g. Baker) activates the lexical representation that mediates word recognition. Experiment 1 showed that a familiarity decision to familiar full names produced an effect of repetition priming on subsequent lexical decision to words that were presented in the initial task as surnames. Experiment 2 demonstrated that, conversely, a lexical decision primed subsequent familiarity decision to full names involving the same word. Experiment 3 showed that repeating the same decision during the initial and test phases did not produce a larger repetition priming effect than that obtained when the task at test differed from the prime task (name familiarity decision vs lexical decision or vice versa). The results are interpreted as support for the view that repetition priming is due to repeated activation of representations that are accessed by both common names and proper names.