Paired-associate learning and priming effects in amnesia: A neuropsychological study.

Conducted 4 experiments investigating the role of priming effects in paired-associate learning. Ss for all 4 experiments were 5 male and 3 female alcoholics (mean age 53.8 yrs; WAIS—R IQs 85–203) with Korsakoff syndrome. Control Ss were 26 male alcoholics (mean age 47.6 yrs). Exp I illustrated the distinction between the memory impairment of amnesic (Korsakoff) Ss and their intact priming ability. In Exp II, amnesic Ss showed good paired-associate learning for related word pairs but controls performed significantly better. Exp II also showed that the forgetting of related word pairs by amnesic Ss followed the same time course as the decay of word priming. Exp III showed that amnesic Ss were as good as controls at learning related word pairs when word-association tests were used. Exp IV showed that amnesic Ss exhibited normal priming when they were asked to free associate to words that were semantically related to previously presented words. Results indicate that both priming effects and paired-associate learning of related words depended on activation, a process that is preserved in amnesia. Activation is a transient phenomenon presumed to operate on and facilitate access to preexisting representations. (67 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)