Abstract
Using word completion tasks of KANJI idioms and of proverbs, implicit memory (priming) performance was studied in four groups of subjects : Pick's disease (PD) patients with Gogi (word-meaning) aphasia; PD patients without Gogi aphasia; Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients;healthy controls. Priming performance in the AD group and the PD without Gogi aphasia group was comparable with that in the control group, although those patients could not correctly explain the meanings of idioms and proverbs presented. On the other hand, it was markedly defective in the PD with Gogi aphasia group on both priming tasks and the patients of this group was unaware of idioms and proverbs. In PD patients with Gogi aphasia, phonological sets could not be retrieved even under the implicit condition as a unit of word and of proverb,indicating a disruption of lexicon (phonological representation) in Gogi aphasia regardless an accompanying disruption of semantic system.
