Executive functioning and prospective memory in young children

The current study examined the role of executive functioning (EF) in children's prospective memory (PM) by assessing the effect of delay and number of intentions to-be-remembered on PM, as well as relations between PM and EF. Ninety-six 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds completed a PM task and two executive function tasks. The PM task required children to interrupt an ongoing card game to perform one action (single intention) or two actions (dual intention) with target cards after a short delay (1 min) or a long delay (5 min). There was no main effect of number of intentions or delay on the PM task. However, performance improved with age, and age and delay interacted such that 4-year-olds’ performance remained the same after a long delay whereas 5-year-olds’ performance improved after a long delay. We suggest that the age by delay interaction is a product of age differences in cognitive monitoring. Working memory but not inhibitory control predicted PM with age controlled. We argue that an executive function framework permits an integrative understanding of many processes involved in young children's prospective memory.     

The Compensatory Role of Implementation Intentions for Young Adults with Low Working Memory Capacity

Many factors improve prospective memory performance both inside and outside of the laboratory, including the detailed planning of the situational cue and intended action (i.e., implementation intentions). In the current study, we obtained measures of working memory capacity and laboratory event‐based prospective memory performance in college‐aged adults. Half of our participants formed an implementation intention in the prospective memory task. Because of evidence that implementation intentions increase the encoding/retrieval efficiency of the prospective memory, it was predicted that forming an implementation intention would serve as a compensatory strategy for those with low working memory ability. Our results supported this hypothesis in that working memory capacity no longer correlated with prospective memory performance when participants employed an implementation intention encoding strategy. These findings suggest that implementation intentions may be an effective way for individuals with low working memory capacity to improve their performance in an attentionally demanding prospective memory task. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The involvement of executive functions in prospective memory performance of adults

The present study examines the relationship between prospective memory performance and executive functioning. The four phases of the prospective memory process—intention formation, intention retention, reinstantiation of the intention, and intention execution—are assumed to require different amounts of executive processing, most of which is demanded in the phases of intention formation and intention execution. At present, though, it is still unclear whether, and to what extent, prefrontal executive systems are involved in different kinds of prospective memory tasks, as some findings suggest that prospective memory might rather rely on nonstrategic processes that are unlikely to depend on prefrontal executive systems. Therefore, this study focuses on the following questions: (1) to what degree does executive functioning predict prospective memory performance in different standard prospective memory tasks and, furthermore, are certain executive measures better predictors than others; (2) are age‐related effects in different prospective memory measures due to individual differences in executive functioning; and (3) do age‐related differences in prospective memory exist that are not explained by individual differences in executive functioning. In a sample of 80 adults (20‐80 years), we applied four instruments to measure prospective memory: a traditional single‐task paradigm, two more complex tasks—one time‐based and one event‐based—and a highly complex multi‐task paradigm. We further assessed a broadly defined construct of executive functioning using several standard neuropsychological tests. Results showed that executive functioning did not predict performance in the simple single‐task paradigm. However, executive functioning, but not age, predicted performance in the two more complex standard tests of prospective remembering, and both executive functioning and age predicted performance in the most complex paradigm. In sum, the obtained data underline the assumption that frontal/ executive functions are related to prospective memory performance across a range of prospective paradigms. It also seems clear that age differences in prospective memory performance partially depend on age‐related individual differences in frontal/executive functions.     

Complex Prospective Memory in Children with ADHD

The ability to remember intentions (prospective memory) is fundamental to the organization of goal-directed actions in everyday life. Successful prospective remembering involves forming, retaining, initiating, and executing an intention. Although previous research has demonstrated prospective memory impairments in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), this has largely focused on the intention initiation and execution stages. In this study, we investigate the performance of 20 children with ADHD and 20 matched controls at each of the four stages of prospective memory, using a computer multitask paradigm. Results suggest that children with ADHD may demonstrate difficulties forming delayed intentions, as indicated by impulsive planning, and that this may have further implications for the retention and implementation of these delayed intentions. While children with ADHD showed comparable multitask switching, this appeared to be at the expense of intention execution as they made more performance errors than controls. Implications for day-to-day functioning are discussed.     

Complex prospective memory in children with ADHD.

The ability to remember intentions (prospective memory) is fundamental to the organization of goal-directed actions in everyday life. Successful prospective remembering involves forming, retaining, initiating, and executing an intention. Although previous research has demonstrated prospective memory impairments in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), this has largely focused on the intention initiation and execution stages. In this study, we investigate the performance of 20 children with ADHD and 20 matched controls at each of the four stages of prospective memory, using a computer multitask paradigm. Results suggest that children with ADHD may demonstrate difficulties forming delayed intentions, as indicated by impulsive planning, and that this may have further implications for the retention and implementation of these delayed intentions. While children with ADHD showed comparable multitask switching, this appeared to be at the expense of intention execution as they made more performance errors than controls. Implications for day-to-day functioning are discussed.     

Development of Prospective Memory: Tasks Based on the Prefrontal-Lobe Model

This study investigated the development of prospective memory using tasks based on the prefrontal-lobe model. Three groups each of 30 children, adolescents, and young adults were compared on prospective-memory performance using ongoing tasks with two levels of cognitive demand (low and high), and two levels of importance (unstressed and stressed) of remembering prospective cues. The Self-Ordered Pointing Task (SOPT), Stroop Color Word Interference Test, and Tower of London were also used to assess relationships between prospective memory and prefrontal-lobe functions. The children remembered fewer prospective cues than either the adolescents or adults, but the adolescents and adults remembered equally well. This trend increased significantly as the cognitive demand of the ongoing tasks increased. However, stressing or not stressing the importance of remembering made no difference to prospective-memory performance. Performance on the SOPT and Stroop Colour Word Interference predicted performance on the high- but not on the low-demand condition. These findings implicate the maturation of the brain's prefrontal region in the development of prospective memory.     

编码方式、认知负荷和线索数量对前瞻记忆的影响

采用2（编码方式：执行意向、练习）×2（认知负荷：高、低）×2（线索数量：单一线索、多线索）的混合设计探讨在不同认知负荷和线索数量下两种编码方式对前瞻记忆的影响。结果表明：认知负荷和编码方式交互作用显著,在高认知负荷条件下,练习编码显著好于执行意向编码;线索数量和编码方式交互作用显著,在多线索条件下,练习编码显著好于执行意向编码。说明执行意向编码更容易受认知负荷和线索数量的影响。研究支持了预备注意与记忆加工理论。     

The first signs of prospective memory

We conducted a study to examine the impact of motivation and length of delay on performance on prospective memory (PM) tasks in 2-year of children. A total of 158 children aged exactly 24 months were asked to perform a naturalistic PM task. Length of delay (10?min; 35?min) and motivation (high; very high) were between-subjects factors. Two thirds of children had to be excluded from the analysis because of poor retrospective memory for the PM task instructions which were no longer remembered at the end of the session. For the children who did remember the instructions, both motivation and delay had significant effects on PM. Also, their PM performance was reliably above zero, even after the long delay. The findings indicate that when children as young as 24 months are able to remember the PM task instructions they can reliably succeed in PM tasks that are intrinsically motivating for them.     

The effects of ongoing task absorption on event-based prospective memory in preschoolers

The current study applied a 2 × 2 experimental design to investigate the effects of ongoing task absorption on event-based prospective memory performance of children aged 3 and 5 years. Children were required to label pictures as ongoing task but to remember to refrain from picture naming and to respond to the target cues in a different way as the prospective memory task. Two differently absorbing ongoing tasks (high absorbing scenario game task vs. low absorbing computer-based task) were administered. Results indicated that prospective memory performance of 5-year-old children was significantly better than that of 3-year-old children. Ongoing task absorption affected the ongoing task performance of preschoolers, but not overall prospective memory performance. Only the 3-year-olds were negatively affected by high ongoing task absorption, which was not the case for the 5-year-olds. The findings are discussed within the light of the multiprocess theory.     

Psychophysiology of prospective memory

Prospective memory involves the self-initiated retrieval of an intention upon an appropriate retrieval cue. Cue identification can be considered as an orienting reaction and may thus trigger a psychophysiological response. Here we present two experiments in which skin conductance responses (SCRs) elicited by prospective memory cues were compared to SCRs elicited by aversive stimuli to test whether a single prospective memory cue triggers a similar SCR as an aversive stimulus. In Experiment 2 we also assessed whether cue specificity had a differential influence on prospective memory performance and on SCRs. We found that detecting a single prospective memory cue is as likely to elicit a SCR as an aversive stimulus. Missed prospective memory cues also elicited SCRs. On a behavioural level, specific intentions led to better prospective memory performance. However, on a psychophysiological level specificity had no influence. More generally, the results indicate reliable SCRs for prospective memory cues and point to psychophysiological measures as valuable approach, which offers a new way to study one-off prospective memory tasks. Moreover, the findings are consistent with a theory that posits multiple prospective memory retrieval stages.     

Do preschoolers remember what to do? Incentive and external cues in prospective memory

Prospective memory, which involves remembering to perform an action at a future time, is used frequently in daily life. Few researchers, however, have studied this type of memory with children. The present study examined and compared 3- and 5-year-olds' performance on naturalistic and computer-based prospective memory tasks. The effects of incentive and external cues on memory performance were examined along with the relationship between prospective and retrospective memory. The results indicated that 5-year-olds demonstrated greater prospective memory performance than did 3-year-olds and neither incentive nor external cues consistently improved performance. Relationships between performance on the naturalistic and computer tasks varied with age. In contrast to the adult literature, younger children's prospective and retrospective memory performances were related. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Implementation intention encoding does not automatize prospective memory responding

An implementation intention encoding, one that specifies the concrete situation that is appropriate for initiating an intended action and links that situational cue to the intended action, has been shown to improve prospective memory. One proposed mechanism is that implementation intentions create automatized prospective remembering. This view anticipates that implementation intentions should prevent prospective memory decline in highly cognitively demanding situations. Contrary to this expectation, although implementation intention encoding enhanced prospective memory (Experiments 1 and 2), implementation-intention encoding did not buffer against significant prospective memory decline in high-cognitive-demand conditions (Experiments 1–3), and in Experiment 3, implementation intention encoding produced lower levels of prospective memory performance than did behavioral practice in the high-cognitive-demand situation. We suggest that although implementation intentions may stimulate a strong associative encoding (between an anticipated environmental cue and an intended action), that encoding does not support a completely automatized prospective memory response.     

4～5岁儿童对社会事件记忆的消极偏向

消极偏向是指相对于积极或中性的刺激,消极刺激能够获得更多的注意和认知加工。本研究采用故事法通过三个实验考察4~5岁儿童对社会事件的记忆是否存在消极偏向。实验一发现幼儿对威胁行为的回忆成绩显著优于对中性行为和助人行为的回忆成绩。实验二发现幼儿对悲伤事件的回忆成绩显著优于对中性和愉快事件的回忆成绩。实验三发现幼儿对威胁行为的前瞻记忆成绩显著优于中性和助人行为的前瞻记忆成绩。研究说明无论事件是威胁性的还是非威胁性的,无论是回溯记忆还是前瞻记忆,4~5岁儿童的记忆都表现出消极偏向。     

Divided attention interferes with fulfilling activity-based intentions

Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of divided attention on activity-based prospective memory. After establishing a goal to fulfill an intention upon completion of an ongoing activity, successful completion of the intention generally suffered when attention was being devoted to an additional task (Experiment 1). Forming an implementation intention at encoding ameliorated the negative effects of divided attention (Experiment 2). The results from the present experiments demonstrate that activity-based prospective memory is susceptible to distraction and that implementing encoding strategies that enhance prospective memory performance can reduce this interference. The current work raises interesting questions about the similarities and differences between event- and activity-based prospective memories.     

On the role of imagery in event-based prospective memory

The role of imagery in encoding event-based prospective memories has yet to be fully clarified. Herein, it is argued that imagery augments a cue-to-context association that supports event-based prospective memory performance. By this account, imagery encoding not only improves prospective memory performance but also reduces interference to intention-related information that occurs outside of context. In the current study, when lure words occurred outside of the appropriate responding context, the use of imagery encoding strategies resulted in less interference when compared with a standard event-based intention condition. This difference was eliminated when participants were not given a specific context to associate their intention (i.e., lures occurred within the appropriate responding context). These results support a cue-to-context association account of how imagery operates in certain event-based prospective memory tasks.     

Affective state and event-based prospective memory

Event-based prospective memory tasks require the realisation of a delayed intention at the occurrence of a specific target event. The present research investigates how performance in this kind of prospective memory task is influenced by the current affective state. By manipulating participants' mood during intention realisation we tested two competing models of mood effects on memory (i.e., a capacity consuming account and a processing style account). Furthermore, we manipulated the valence of the target event to investigate mood-congruency effects in prospective memory. No evidence was found for a mood-congruency effect, but the results showed that prospective memory performance increased with a sad mood. This effect is consistent with recent theories on mood-dependent processing-style regulation, postulating that a sad mood produces a more analytic and detailed processing style whereas a happy mood produces a more global and less detailed processing style.     

认知负荷与编码方式对前瞻记忆及其成分的影响

实验1探究认知负荷（高、低）与编码方式（标准、书写、执行意向）对前瞻记忆的影响,实验2进一步探究其对前瞻记忆两种成分的影响。实验1显示执行意向与书写编码的正确率高于标准编码,而前二者无差异;低负荷的前瞻记忆表现好于高负荷。实验2显示执行意向与书写编码的前瞻成分正确率高于标准编码,而前二者无差异;低负荷的前瞻成分表现好于高负荷;不同认知负荷与编码方式均对回溯成分无影响。结果表明：在意向内容相对简单的情况下,执行意向与书写编码对前瞻记忆的促进作用主要表现在促进前瞻成分的提取,低负荷比高负荷有利于前瞻记忆的成功执行,主要体现在前瞻成分成功率更高。     

Prospective memory and ageing: Is task importance relevant?

Memory for activities to be performed in the future, i.e., prospective memory, such as remembering to take medication or remembering to give a colleague a message, is a pervasive real‐world memory task that has recently begun to attract the attention of numerous researchers. Age effects in prospective memory have been found particularly in complex paradigms requiring participants to remember to switch between several subtasks in a limited time period (e.g., Kliegel, McDaniel, & Einstein, 2000). Here, most of the older adults try to complete one or two subtasks and to forget the prospective instruction to work on all subtasks. Since recent findings in this context show that one profits from tips regarding the relevant task in complex double tasks, it seems likely that age effects in prospective memory tasks might also be due to the lack of information about the importance of the prospective task. To test this hypothesis, the importance of the prospective task was varied in the present study with 104 young and old participants by providing motivational incentives to interrupt and switch during the introduction phase (plan formation) as well as during the execution phase. Also, interindividual differences regarding nonexecutive as well as executive cognitive resources were analysed, thus allowing estimation of the relationship between these factors and (age‐related) performance in complex prospective remembering. The results show age effects in favour of the younger group in all task components of the complex prospective multitask. In contrast, there was no effect of the present experimental manipulation of motivational incentives. Finally, in regression analyses, intention formation, in particular, was found to be a significant predictor of intention execution, explaining most of the age‐related variance. In sum, our results specifically highlight the fundamental importance of adequately planning the complex intention and do not support the hypothesis that age‐related decrements in performance are reflecting a lack of motivation in the present complex prospective memory paradigm.     

Investigating the output monitoring component of event-based prospective memory performance

The goal of this study was to augment the standard event-based prospective memory paradigm with an output monitoring component. That component involves memory for past actions and, in the context of prospective memory, is largely responsible for repetition and omission errors. The modified paradigm also provides an index of what people believe to be true concerning their past prospective memory performance. More elaborate prospective responses decreased forgetting that an intention had been fulfilled, whereas contextual change increased forgetting. In Experiments 1-3, people often reported that they had fulfilled an intention on a previous occasion when they actually had not, but distinctive responses reduced that error in Experiment 4. Therefore, people's beliefs about their past performance can influence the incidence of repetition and omission errors in event-based prospective memory tasks.     

Future thinking improves prospective memory performance and plan enactment in older adults

Efficient intention formation might improve prospective memory by reducing the need for resource-demanding strategic processes during the delayed performance interval. The present study set out to test this assumption and provides the first empirical assessment of whether imagining a future action improves prospective memory performance equivalently at different stages of the adult lifespan. Thus, younger (n?=?40) and older (n?=?40) adults were asked to complete the Dresden Breakfast Task, which required them to prepare breakfast in accordance with a set of rules and time restrictions. All participants began by generating a plan for later enactment; however, after making this plan, half of the participants were required to imagine themselves completing the task in the future (future thinking condition), while the other half received standard instructions (control condition). As expected, overall younger adults outperformed older adults. Moreover, both older and younger adults benefited equally from future thinking instructions, as reflected in a higher proportion of prospective memory responses and more accurate plan execution. Thus, for both younger and older adults, imagining the specific visual–spatial context in which an intention will later be executed may serve as an easy-to-implement strategy that enhances prospective memory function in everyday life.