title: Loss of person-specific knowledge in Alzheimer's disease: evidence from priming.
abstract: Semantic deficits in Alzheimer's disease (AD) are often more severe for items that are characterized by a unique semantic and lexical association, such as famous people. Whether these deficits are due to the degradation of semantic information or a deficit in the ability to intentionally access semantic knowledge remains controversial. To assess the integrity of the semantic system without explicitly accessing it, a priming paradigm was used. Semantic and repetition priming effects in individuals with AD (n = 7) and age-matched controls (n = 13) were measured in a familiarity judgment task using visually-presented names of famous people. A defective priming effect in AD subjects was observed in the semantic priming but not in the repetition priming condition. Therefore, the semantic impairments observed in AD may indicate a degraded representation of the semantic information concerning famous people.
authors.affiliation: a Centre de Recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal , Montréal , Canada.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Predovan
authors.forename: Delphine
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gandini
authors.forename: Maxime
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Montembeault
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rouleau
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bherer
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Joubert
authors.forename: Simona M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Brambati
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D005197:Famous Persons; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D060865:Repetition Priming; D012660:Semantics