CROSS-MODAL PRIMING IN THE DENSELY AMNESIC SUBJECT KC

If repetition priming is a perceptual phenomenon, why is it not elimin ated when the modality is shifted between study and test? We investiga ted cross-modal priming in a densely amnesic subject (K.C.) with bilat eral hippocampal lesions using a fragment completion task. After makin g semantic judgments on words in the visual and auditory modality, K.C . was asked to complete visual word fragments with the first word that came to mind. On three separate occasions, K.C. showed robust within- modality priming but no reliable cross-modal priming, suggesting that the latter relies on brain structures damaged in this patient. Our dat a are compatible with the notion that cross-modal priming in healthy i ndividuals reflects explicit contamination from episodic memory. Condi tions that compromise episodic memory, such as amnesia, can abolish th e effect.