Abstract: Objective To investigate the perceptual priming in brain injured patients. Methods 41brain injured patients, including 24 brain injury and 17 stroke. 99 normal controls, including 39 young, 39 middle aged and 21elderly people. All of them were estimated by the Fragmented Picture Naming Task. Results The patient group had lower priming scores than the young (t=5.558, P<0.001), and middle and elderly-aged (t=3.100, P=0.003) control group in the Fragmented Picture Naming Task. Conclusion Perceptual priming is not only concerned with occipital lobe, but also with frontal and temporal lobes possibly.

Key words: brain injury, stroke, priming, the fragmented picture naming task