Perceptual and conceptual priming in amnesic and alcoholic patients

This study investigated the contribution of perceptual and conceptual processes to the repetition priming effect, and evaluated alternative theoretical positions about repetition priming in amnesic patients. Toward this end, we administered three repetition priming tasks (Stem Completion, Word Identification and Free Association) and an explicit memory task (yes/no Recognition) to amnesic and alcoholic patients, and tested the sensitivity of these tasks to level of processing and to manipulations of presentation modality. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the level of priming in Stem Completion and Free Association (but not in Word Identification) was enhanced by semantic elaboration of the stimuli. Experiment 2 revealed that the magnitude of priming in Word Identification and Stem Completion (but not in Free Association) was larger in the intramodal then in the intermodal condition. Amnesic patients displayed normal perceptual as well conceptual priming. Possible interpretations of these results according to theoretical models that distinguish memory tasks along an explicit-implicit dichotomy (multiple memory system theory), or on the basis of the extent to which they depend upon perceptual or conceptual processing (transfer-appropriate procedures approach), or that assumes a possible contamination of priming performance by explicit strategies of retrieval are discussed.