Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 23, 2026

A Semantic Priming Event-related Potential (ERP) Task to Study Lexico-semantic and Visuo-semantic Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Published on: April 12, 2018
The effects of ageing and Alzheimer's disease on semantic and gender priming
Rosa Manenti1, Claudia Repetto, Simone Bentrovato
1Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Vita Salute University and San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
Abstract:
Normal ageing as well as age-associated pathological conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease, are associated with modifications of language processing. In particular, an impaired performance in semantic tasks, associated with relatively spared syntactic processing, has been suggested to be the hallmark of the language disorder of Alzheimer's disease. The present experiment tests semantic and syntactic aspects of language processing at the same time, using an on-line paradigm, in patients with Alzheimer's disease, compared with elderly and young controls. Normal ageing was associated with a profile of performance, which was slowed but qualitatively comparable with that of young controls. Both gender agreement and congruent sentential semantics resulted in facilitation relative to baseline in young and elderly controls, with no significant interference effects of incongruent grammatical and semantic information. In contrast, Alzheimer's disease patients presented both facilitation and interference effects. These findings suggest that interference effects are amplified by dementia, and may result from defective inhibitory processes due to Alzheimer's disease pathology.
Related Concept Videos
Alzheimer Disease l: Introduction
Automatic Processing and Automatic Social Behavior
Alzheimer Disease ll: Pathophysiology
Alzheimer's Disease: Overview
The clinical diagnosis of AD hinges on the presence of memory and other cognitive impairments. Biomarkers, such as changes in Aβ and tau...
Aging
Cellular Clock Theory
The cellular clock theory posits that the human lifespan is closely tied to the finite capacity of cells to divide, a phenomenon governed by telomeres, which are protective caps at the ends of...
Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

