IMPLICIT MEMORY IN AMNESIC PATIENTS - EVIDENCE FOR SPARED AUDITORY PRIMING

Previous observations of spared priming in amnesic patients have been based almost entirely on data from visual implicit memory tests. Our research examined perceptual priming in amnesic patients and control subjects on an auditory identification task in which previously spoken,words and new words were presented in white noise. We manipulated type of encoding task (semantic vs. nonsemantic) and speaker's voice at study and test (same vs. different). Priming was little affected by either manipulation, and amnesic patients exhibited normal priming in all experimental conditions. On an explicit test of recognition memory, by contrast, amnesic patients exhibited severely impaired performance following the semantic study task; all subjects showed poor explicit memory following the nonsemantic study task. Results are consistent with the idea that auditory priming depends largely on a presemantic auditory perceptual representation system.