Effect of Cognitive Demand on Prospective Memory in Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

T his study aimed to evaluate the influence of cognitive demand on prospectivememory in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) using a dual-task paradigm. Fourteen individuals with severe TBI and 14 matched controls were required to undertake two tasks. A lexical-decision task was used as an ongoing task and had two levels of cognitive demand (viz., low and high). The event-based prospective-memory task involved performing a specific action whenever a target stimulus appeared during the ongoing task. The Letter-Number Sequencing Test, the Tower of London and the Controlled Oral Word Association Test were also administered to assess the relationship between prefrontal lobe functions and prospective memory. As hypothesised, participants in the TBI group performed more poorly than participants in the control group on the prospective-memory task in the high but not in the low demand condition. There were significant correlations between prospective-memory task performance and scores on the Letter-Number Sequencing Test and the Controlled Oral Word Association Test. These findings help to clarify the nature of prospective-memory impairment in individuals with TBI and support the involvement of prefrontal processes in prospective remembering.

Event-based prospective memory performance during subacute recovery following moderate to severe traumatic brain injury in children: Effects of monetary incentives

“…Consistent with fi ndings in PM studies of normal adults (Einstein & McDaniel, 1990 ;Kidder, Park, Hertzog, & Morrell, 1997 ;Maujean, Shum, & McQueen, 2003 ) or typicallydeveloping children (Kerns, 2000 ;Kerns & Price, 2001 ) and a retrospective study of children with TBI (McCauley et al, 2009 ), no gender effect was found. Although SES is known to moderate outcomes of children with TBI (Taylor, 2004 ;Taylor et al, 1999Taylor et al, , 2002Yeates et al, 1997 ), no signifi cant effect of SES on EB-PM performance was found.…”

Prospective Memory and Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury: Effects of Cognitive Demand

“…For example, aging adults in whom prefrontal deterioration is common (West, 1996) were found by Kidder, Park, Hertzog, and Morrell (1997) to perform more poorly on a prospective memory task than younger adults, and that age differences increased as the cognitive demand on the ongoing task increased. Similar results were found in adults with TBI (Maujean, Shum, & McQueen, 2003), who when compared with controls, were found to be poorer at prospective remembering, and to be poorer still when the cognitive demand was greatest. Radiological and electrophysiological evidence also support the model.…”

“…Evidence from studies of adults with TBI also provides support. For example, Maujean et al (2003) found that young adults with TBI remembered fewer prospective intentions than those in a control group. These findings are not surprising given the degree of damage to the frontal regions that occurs with TBI (Adams et al, 1980;Holbourne, 1943;Levin et al, 1991).…”

Headaches among Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom veterans with mild traumatic brain injury associated with exposures to explosions

“…Short-term and working memory were evaluated with the Auditory Consonant Trigram Test [34], the letter-number sequencing subtest of the WAIS-III, and the Trail Making Test parts A and B [35][36][37]. The ability to initiate, sustain, and retrieve information was measured with the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (also called the F-A-S test) and animal naming [38][39][40]. Language function was examined with the Boston Naming Test [35,41].…”