The rate with which perceptual information becomes
available was manipulated in 2 word naming experiments.
Word priming effects, in terms of reduced naming latencies
for repeated items, and recognition memory measures were
obtained with matched groups of amnesic patients and control
participants. In both experiments, the amnesic patients
evidenced significantly reduced priming effects compared
to control participants under difficult task conditions.
Under easy task conditions the baseline naming latencies
of the amnesics were significantly longer than those of
controls, but the difference in priming effects failed
to reach significance. The findings are consistent with
the Information Availability model of priming positing
that both priming and explicit memory are mediated by episodic
information from a study or information processing episode.
It is argued that word priming does not represent a memory
function that is spared in amnesia. (JINS, 1999,
5, 175–190.)
