The impact of using implementation intentions as task instructions on prospective memory performance after stroke

Abstract

Prospective Memory (PM), the ability to remember to carry out intentions in the future, is often impaired after stroke. Little is known about rehabilitation of PM post-stroke with literature limited by small sample sizes and reliance on self-reported memory performance.Implementation intentions may make prospective remembering more automatic and follow a simple if-then structure (if X occurs, then I will do Y), focusing on the cue rather than the task. We aimed to investigate the effect of implementation intentions on PM post-stroke.Twenty-eight individuals with stroke and 27 controls were randomly allocated to a standard instruction or implementation intention condition and completed an assessment battery over two sessions. Implementation intention instructions were provided for PM tasks on the Delayed Message Task, Lexical Decision Prospective Memory Task (LDPMT), and the Virtual Reality Prospective Memory Shopping Task. The implementation intention groups performed better on all PM tasks compared to the standard instruction group, but no results reached statistical significance, likely due to the small sample size. In addition, the implementation intentions group monitored the time significantly more on the LDPMT than those in the standard instruction group.

The benefits of mind wandering on a naturalistic prospective memory task

“…Finally, EFT has been associated with the intention formation phase and improvement of prospective memory retrieval 98 . Indeed, while forming a future intention does not require thinking about that future event in a specific way, imagining when, where, and how the intention will be retrieved, and the action performed, has a beneficial facilitative effect on the execution of those intentions 113 – 115 .…”

The effects of implementation intentions on prospective memory in young and older adults

“…This task was developed based on Einstein and McDaniel ( 1990 )'s dual-task paradigm for the near-transfer task, and adapted from Hogan et al ( 2021 ). Participants were presented with letter strings, and participants judged whether they are words or non-words as the ongoing task (pressing “F” for words, and “J” for non-words).…”