Increased reading speed for words and pronounceable non-words: evidence of preserved priming in amnesics.

Twelve amnesics with various aetiologies were compares with 12 matched control subjects on a task which examined the increase in reading speed for lists of words and pronounceable non-words that were shown several times and read twice during a training phase. After a four minute delay the reading speed for the primed lists was compared with that for an equal number of umprimed lists. No non-specific practice effects were observed. The amnesics showed an equal proportional increase in reading speed for primed words list to that of their controls, and, if anything, a slightly greater reading speed increase for non-words. These effects were found even when an amnesic subgroup, selected because its baseline reading speed was closely matched to that of the controls, was used for the comparison. The patients' preserved priming for the novel information found in the non-word list reading task occurred in conjunction with very impaired free recall for the contents of the lists. The effects occurred in patients of all aetiologies used in the study and confirm and extend the findings of Moscovitch, Winocur and McLachlan (1986).