Abstract: The cognitive and memory functions of the basal ganglia have been the focus of contemporary cognitive neuroscience researches. It is posited that the basal ganglia mediate perceptual priming by Wang CS et al. (ACPA, 1998, 30(4):423-430) based on their findings on one patient with right basal ganglia damage. The present study tested two neurological patients with lesions to the basal ganglia (one ascompanying bilatera hippocampus damage and the other right thalamus damage) and matched controls to further explore the effects of lesions to the basal ganglia on priming performance. It was found that the two patients impaired seriously on perceptual priming task as compared with controls whereas almost at the same level as the controls' on semantic priming tasks. The results suggested that the lesions to the basal ganglia lead to perceptual priming impairment because previous studies had demonstrated that priming was independent of hippocampus or thalamus. It is further confirmed Wang CS et al. 's suggestion that the basal ganglia mediate or participate perceptual priming have no effect on semantic primng.

Key words: the basal ganglia lesions, hippocampus lesions, thalamus lesions, perceptual priming, semantic priming, effects