Complex prospective memory: Development across the lifespan and the role of task interruption.

Abstract

Prospective memory (PM) reflects the product of cognitive processes associated with the formation, retention, delayed initiation, and execution of intentions. It has been proposed that developmental changes in PM across the lifespan are heavily dependent upon the developmental trajectory of executive control functions. This study is the first to apply a complex PM task to children, young adults, and older adults. The procedure allows for the assessment of each of the 4 phases of PM. During intention execution, the authors additionally manipulated whether participants had to actively interrupt attention to the current 'ongoing' task in order to switch to the execution of the next intended task. Group differences mirroring inverted U-shaped functions were observed in those phases conceptualized as relying on executive control (intention formation, initiation, and execution). Age differences in intention execution were substantially greater when active task interruption was necessary. The current study provides the first evidence of growth and decline of complex PM across the lifespan and suggests that the degree of inhibitory control needed to succeed in the task may be one factor underlying this development.

The development of prospective memory in children: An executive framework

“…Young children's PM generally declines when the OT must be interrupted in order to complete a prospective action compared to when it is completed immediately following the OT (e.g., Ford et al, 2012;Kliegel et al, 2008a;Kvavilashvili et al, 2001;Ś lusarczyk & Niedź wień ska, 2013;Wang et al, 2008). Wang et al (2008) suggested that the interruption condition requires more inhibitory control than the non-interruption condition leading to worse PM performance, as young children struggle with inhibiting pre-potent responses.…”

“…The authors suggest that low levels of PM performance were likely due to RM failures as many participants remembered they had to remind the experimenter but were not able to remember the exact nature of the intention. Developmental studies that involve a series of complex rules for the completion of the PM task have found age-related increases in PM performance between 7-and 10-years (Kliegel, Mackinlay, & Jäger, 2008a;Martin & Kliegel, 2003). However, complex intentions were not contrasted with a simple intention, as this was not the primary purpose of the studies.…”

“…Cue focality has been manipulated in adult PM studies revealing that when prospective cues need to be processed in the same way as those already in the focus of attention during the OT, PM performance is better than when attention needs to switch to another dimension of the cue (e.g., Einstein et al, 2005;Kliegel et al, 2008a;Marsh, Hicks, & Hancock, 2000;Scullin, McDaniel, Shelton, & Lee, 2010). For example, a PM cue that requires words to be analyzed for meaning just as in the OT would be described as a focal-cue, whereas a PM cue that requires the color of the background to be analyzed while the OT requires word meaning to be analyzed would be described as a non-focal PM cue.…”

Executive and theory-of-mind contributions to event-based prospective memory in children: Exploring the self-projection hypothesis

“…Evidence of an involvement of executive functions in PM comes from studies showing that children's PM performance is impaired by raised cognitive load, for example, when a delay is introduced between the appearance of the PM cue and the opportunity to enact the response (Rendell et al, 2009) or when the ongoing task must be interrupted to execute the PM response (Kliegel, Mackinlay, & Jäger, 2008;Shum, Cross, Ford, & Ownsworth, 2008;Wang et al, 2008). In one of the first studies of this kind, Kvavilashvili, Messer, and Ebdon (2001) asked 4-to 7-year-olds to name line drawings of everyday objects and animals, presented in four stacks of 20 pictures each, while showing the pictures to a toy mole (i.e., the ongoing task).…”

Intraindividual reaction time variability predicts prospective memory failures in older adults

“…One error type that may have important implications for older adults is prospective memory failure. Prospective memory is defined as the ability to plan and remember to perform previously planned activities at a specific point in time (e.g., Ellis & Kvavilashvili, 2000;Kliegel, Mackinlay, & Jager, 2008). Tasks such as remembering to take one's medication after breakfast or remembering to switch off the stove after cooking, show that prospective memory can be regarded as an important prerequisite for autonomy and independence in everyday life (see, Cockburn & Smith, 1994;Woods, Weinborn, Velnoweth, Rooney, & Bucks, 2012).…”