ERP Correlates of Prospective Memory and Cue Focality in Children

Abstract

Prospective memory (PM) is essential in the everyday activities of children because it involves remembering intentions for the future, such as doing their homework or bringing written parental permissions to school. Developmental studies have shown increases in PM performance throughout childhood, but the specific processes underlying this development are still under debate. In the present study, event-related potentials were used to examine whether the focality of the PM task is related to the PM increments by testing two groups of children (first and last cycle of primary school) and assessing differences in N300 (cue detection), frontal positivity (switching), parietal positivity (retrieval of the intention) and frontal slow waves (monitoring of the retrieved intention). The results showed significant differences in focality in the group of older children but no differences in any of the components for their younger counterparts. In addition, the differences between prospective and ongoing trials were smaller for younger than older children. These findings suggest that the ability to adjust attentional strategies, monitor, switch and retrieve the intention develops across childhood and affects PM performance in attentionally demanding conditions.

Inhibitory dysfunction may cause prospective memory impairment in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients: an event-related potential study

“…Our findings suggest a role of prospective positivity in switching between ongoing activities and the PM Task. This is consistent with reported findings ( Cona et al, 2014 ; Cejudo et al, 2022 ; Crook-Rumsey et al, 2022 ). The late positive complex has been postulated to reflect different cognitive processes, depending on whether the instructions would involve a dual-task or task-switch approach ( Bisiacchi et al, 2009 ).…”

Prospective memory in bilinguals: Recalling future intentions in first and second language contexts

“…The fact that these differences were found in the more difficult PM conditions also suggest that early bilinguals adapted their monitoring processes to the requirements of the task. Similar ERP patternsthat is, ERP differences between ongoing activity and prospective intention depending on the monitoring capacities of the grouphave also been found when comparing children, or older people with younger adults (Cejudo, López-Rojas, Gómez-Ariza & Bajo, 2022;Hering, Wild-Wall, Falkenstein, Gajewski, Zinke, Altgassen & Kliegel, 2020).…”