Impaired production priming and intact identification priming in Alzheimer's disease

This study examined the distinction between identification and production p rocesses in repetition priming for 16 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD ) and 16 healthy old control participants (NC). Words were read in three st udy phases. In three test phases, participants (1) reread studied words, al ong with unstudied words, in a word-naming task (identification priming); ( 2) completed 3-letter stems of studied and unstudied words into words in a word-stem completion task (production priming); and (3) answered yes or no to having read studied and unstudied words in a recognition task (explicit memory). Explicit memory and word-stem completion priming were impaired in the AD group compared to the NC group. After correcting for baseline slowin g, word-naming priming magnitude did not differ between the groups. The res ults suggest that the distinction between production and identification pro cesses has promise for explaining the pattern of preservation and failure o f repetition priming in AD.