Abstract
Previous studies have demonstrated that some patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) exhibit a broad spectrum of deficits in access to lexical and semantic information, including impairments on verbal fluency tasks and naming objects portrayed in line drawings. In an effort to characterize the naming disturbance in MS, a semantic priming task, previously shown to be sensitive to deficits in patients with Alzheimer’s disease or Huntington’s disease, was employed. Regardless of their performance on tests of global mental status or naming, the MS patients showed normal performance on the semantic priming task. Since a previous study had shown normal performance by MS patients on a test of lexical priming, the difficulties these patients experience gaining access to lexical knowledge appear to reflect retrieval failures rather than a breakdown in the structure of lexical memory.
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We thank David P. Salmon for providing the materials for the semantic priming test and for his helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript, Donald E. Goodkin for allowing us to test his patients, and especially the patients who participated in the study.
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Beatty, W.W., Monson, N. Semantic priming in multiple sclerosis. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 28, 397–400 (1990). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334049
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334049