The role of nondeclarative memory in the skill for language: Evidence from syntactic priming in patients with amnesia

NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA

卷:101

Article

Heyselaar, Evelien¹  Segaert, Katrien^1,2  Walvoort, Serge J. W.³  Kessels, Roy P. C.^3,4,5  Hagoort, Peter^1,4 

[1] Max Planck Inst Psycholinguist, Neurobiol Language Dept, Nijmegen, Netherlands

[2] Univ Birmingham, Sch Psychol, Birmingham, W Midlands, England

[3] Vincent van Gogh Inst Psychiat, Ctr Excellence Korsakoff & Alcohol Related Cognit, Venray, Netherlands

[4] Radboud Univ Nijmegen, Donders Inst Brain Cognit & Behav, Nijmegen, Netherlands

[5] Radboud Univ Nijmegen, Med Ctr, Dept Med Psychol, Nijmegen, Netherlands

关键词: Korsakoffs syndrome;    Procedural memory;    Syntactic processing;    Priming;    Amnesia;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.04.033

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Syntactic priming, the phenomenon in which participants adopt the linguistic behaviour of their partner, is widely used in psycholinguistics to investigate syntactic operations. Although the phenomenon of syntactic priming is well documented, the memory system that supports the retention of this syntactic information long enough to influence future utterances, is not as widely investigated. We aim to shed light on this issue by assessing patients with Korsakoffs amnesia on an active-passive syntactic priming task and compare their performance to controls matched in age, education, and premorbid intelligence. Patients with Korsakoffs syndrome display deficits in all subdomains of declarative memory, yet their nondeclarative memory remains intact, making them an ideal patient group to determine which memory system supports syntactic priming. In line with the hypothesis that syntactic priming relies on nondeclarative memory, the patient group shows strong priming tendencies (12.6% passive structure repetition). Our healthy control group did not show a priming tendency, presumably due to cognitive interference between declarative and nondeclarative memory. We discuss the results in relation to amnesia, aging, and compensatory mechanisms.

【 授权许可】

Free