Auditory Priming in Elderly Adults: Impairment of Voice-Specific Implicit Memory

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

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Implicit memory in amnesic patients: When is auditory priming spared?

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society ◽

10.1017/s1355617700000539 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 1 (5) ◽

pp. 434-442 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Daniel L. Schacter ◽

Barbara Church

Keyword(s):

Implicit Memory ◽

Explicit Memory ◽

Experimental Conditions ◽

Priming Effects ◽

Memory Tests ◽

Control Subjects ◽

Suggestive Evidence ◽

Auditory Priming ◽

Low Levels ◽

Specific Priming

AbstractAmnesic patients often exhibit spared priming effects on implicit memory tests despite poor explicit memory. In previous research, we found normal auditory priming in amnesic patients on a task in which the magnitude of priming in control subjects was independent of whether speaker's voice was same or different at study and test, and found impaired voice-specific priming on a task in which priming in control subjects is higher when speaker's voice is the same at study and test than when it is different. The present experiments provide further evidence of spared auditory priming in amnesia, demonstrate that normal priming effects are not an artifact of low levels of baseline performance, and provide suggestive evidence that amnesic patients can exhibit voice-specific priming when experimental conditions do not require them to interactively bind together word and voice information. (JINS, 1995,I, 434–442.)

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Generation and Associative Encoding in Young and Old Adults

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169.55.1.23 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 55 (1) ◽

pp. 23-30 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Laurence Taconnat ◽

Charlotte Froger ◽

Mathilde Sacher ◽

Michel Isingrini

Keyword(s):

Task Difficulty ◽

Generation Effect ◽

Elderly Adults ◽

Generation Task ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Old Adults ◽

Strength Of Association ◽

Target Words

Abstract. The generation effect (i.e., better recall of the generated items than the read items) was investigated with a between-list design in young and elderly participants. The generation task difficulty was manipulated by varying the strength of association between cues and targets. Overall, strong associates were better recalled than weak associates. However, the results showed different generation effect patterns according to strength of association and age, with a greater generation effect for weak associates in younger adults only. These findings suggest that generating weak associates leads to more elaborated encoding, but that elderly adults cannot use this elaborated encoding as well as younger adults to recall the target words at test.

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