Semantic homophone priming in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type.

To examine the role of semantic processes in the verbal priming deficits of patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT), 15 DAT patients, 8 amnesic patients, and 12 controls were administered a homophone spelling bias task. Ss' spellings were biased against their previously preferred homophone spellings by presenting the homophones aurally in a semantically related context. The results showed that DAT patients were not significantly different from controls or amnesic patients on the immediate priming measure. However, both patient groups' semantic priming effects decayed more rapidly and their recognition performance was significantly impaired in relation to those for control Ss. These results suggest that DAT patients can perform normally on some semantic priming tasks if the task demands are within the capacity of the patients' remaining intact semantic structure and if the delay between presentations is brief. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)