Automatic and attentional mechanisms of semantic priming in Alzheimer's disease

Previous studies using a word-naming task have suggested that in demented patients, semantic priming results only from automatic spreading activation and not from attention-dependent processes. If this is true, then on a lexical-decision task where attention-dependent processes are a major source of the semantic-priming effect, demented patients should show little or no priming. To test this prediction, three groups of 16 subjects (young and normal-old individuals and patients with Alzheimer's disease) were given a Word-Naming and a Lexical-Decision task. In both tasks, the amount of semantic priming (the difference in response time to a word preceded by a semantically unassociated vs. a semantically associated word) was determined. Demented patients showed significantly greater semantic priming than either normal group on both tasks. This result argues against the hypothesis that the semantic priming found in demented patients is due solely to automatic processes.