Preserved word-stem-completion priming of semantically encoded information in Alzheimer's disease.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and normal elderly control subjects completed 80 standardized sentence frames with single words, yielding a measure of semantic memory. Memory for best fit sentence endings was then tested either explicitly, with a forced-choice recognition task, or implicitly, with a word-stem-completion task. The patients completed fewer sentences with best fit word endings than did the control subjects. Explicit retention was markedly defective in the AD group, but word-stem completion was normal. The preserved word-stem completion in AD is discussed in terms of encoding operations and transfer-appropriate processing.
Grosse
D A
DA
Department of Psychology and Social Sciences, Rush Medical College, Chicago, Illinois 60612.
Wilson
R S
RS
Fox
J H
JH
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012660:Semantics; D014706:Verbal Learning