[Priming Effects and Semantic Learning in Amnesia - Empirical-data and Theoretical Interpretations]

There are now many studies which have demonstrated that even severely amnesic patients may show preserved perceptual and conceptual priming for previously familiar information and for novel information. In addition, amnesic patients may learn more or less easily new factual and semantic information. Preserved priming and semantic learning in amnesic patients are theoretically important because this type of preserved memory concerns kinds of information that amnesics are unable to recognize or recall. The present paper reviews evidence about priming and semantic learning in amnesia, discusses different interpretations of this evidence and examines the predictions of these different views about the nature of the memory deficit shown by amnesics.