Intact priming of words and nonwords in amnesia

Abstract

Amnesic patients and control subjects studied words and nonwords and were then given a perceptual identification test involving briefly presented new (i.e., unstudied) and old (i.e., previously studied) items. Perceptual priming was measured as an increase in the probability of identifying previously studied items in comparison with new items. Amnesic patients exhibited entirely normal priming for both old words and old nonwords. The amnesic patients were significantly impaired, however, in recognizing the items that had appeared on the perceptual identification test. The priming of nonwords did not appear to be based on the activation of words that were phonologically or orthographically similar to the nonwords (i.e., the effect was not based on neigh-borhood effects). The results for nonwords therefore suggest that priming can involve the acquisition of new information, not simply the activation of preexisting representations. Perceptual priming is proposed to reflect specific changes in early-stage processing systems that operate prior to and independently of the systems required for establishing declarative memory. © 1991, Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.