IMPLICIT MEMORY IN AMNESIC PATIENTS - IMPAIRMENT OF VOICE-SPECIFIC PRIMING

Amnesic patients generally exhibit spared priming effects on implicit memory tasks despite poor explicit memory, In a previous study, we demonstrated normal auditory priming in amnesic patients on an identification-in-noise test in which the magnitude of priming is independent of whether the speaker's voice is the same or different at study and test. In the present experiment, we examined auditory priming on a filter identification test in which the magnitude of priming in control subjects is higher when the speaker's voice is the same at study and test than when it is different. Amnesic patients, by contrast, failed to exhibit more priming in a same-voice condition than in a different-voice condition. Voice-specific priming may depend on a memory system that is impaired in amnesia.