Priming Effects in Amnesia: Evidence for a Dissociable Memory Function

Amnesic patients are impaired on tests of recall and recognition memory, yet they exhibit intact priming effects. That is, their performance can be facilitated or biased by recently encountered information. This paper reviews the phenomenon of preserved priming effects in amnesia, describes relationships between priming and other memory functions, and comments on what this spared memory function tells us about the organization of memory.