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Prospective Memory (prospective + memory)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	18%

Selected Abstracts

Cognitively impaired older adults exhibit comparable difficulties on naturalistic and laboratory prospective memory tasks

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 6 2009
Christine M. Will
Prospective memory, or remembering future intentions, is critical for independent living for all ages, but especially older adults. Previous laboratory research has found that cognitively impaired older adults may have particular difficulties with prospective memory, but previous studies have not examined whether these difficulties occur in everyday life. In normal ageing, a dissociation between settings has been observed, with older adults selectively impaired in laboratory (but not naturalistic) contexts. Consequently, in the present study 15 cognitively impaired older adults were compared to demographically matched controls on laboratory and naturalistic measures of prospective memory. The results indicated that the cognitively impaired group performed more poorly on both measures, with the magnitude of the deficit comparable across setting. These results indicate that for older adults who present with cognitive impairment prospective memory deficits observed in laboratory settings may be a valid indicator of difficulties experienced executing delayed intentions in everyday life. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Diazepam-induced prospective memory impairment and its relation to retrospective memory, attention, and arousal

HUMAN PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY: CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL, Issue 2 2006
Jill B. Rich
Abstract The amnestic effects of benzodiazepines are well documented on a variety of memory tasks. However, prospective memory (PM), or remembering to execute an action at a future time, has not been studied previously. This study examined the effect of diazepam on word list recall, PM, sustained attention, and subjective ratings of arousal. Forty-eight healthy participants, aged 19,35, received an average of 0.19,mg/kg oral diazepam or placebo in a double-blind manner. Retrospective memory and PM were assessed by free recall of unrelated word lists and by instructing participants to request a hidden belonging at the end of the session, respectively. Sustained attention was measured by multiple trials of a digit cancellation task, and subjective arousal was assessed by self-ratings of drowsiness. Diazepam impaired performance on all measures, including PM. Reduced PM performance was associated with decreased subjective arousal in the diazepam group but was unrelated to sustained attention. This is the first report of the effects of benzodiazepines on prospective remembering, and further supports the view that the arousal/attentional system is composed of partially independent subsystems that have differential relationships to memory. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Evaluating the efficacy of tele-cognitive rehabilitation for functional performance in three case studies

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY INTERNATIONAL, Issue 1 2003
Dr Sing-Fai Tam PhD Associate Professor
Abstract Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the main causes of long-term disability, and its rehabilitation is a challenge to the healthcare team. Tele-rehabilitation, through using advancements in networking and tailor-made software, has been developed and applied to the cognitive rehabilitation of persons with brain injury in the present study. Tele-cognitive rehabilitation uses customized online computer software as a treatment mode. The online treatment software is operated on an interactive tele-communication platform , for example, video conferencing with screen sharing. Through implementing the tele-cognitive rehabilitation activities, therapists can help clients to practise and thus improve their cognitive skills through using the treatment software successfully. Moreover, hypermedia programming techniques allow the therapist to adjust the software to meet the client's treatment needs, so that the treatment is appropriate to his/her functional levels and living environment. Also the software can customize immediate visual, auditory and personalized feedback to motivate the client and training can be set at the right pace for the client's needs. The present study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness and perceived efficacy of the newly developed customized tele-cognitive rehabilitation programme for three subjects with traumatic brain injury through using single-case and qualitative research design. The cognitive factors investigated in this pilot study were, respectively, Chinese word recognition, prospective memory and semantic memory. The subjects had undergone a recruitment process with stipulated screening criteria. A single case experimental design (ABA reversal/withdrawal design) consisted of a no-intervention baseline phase (A), an intervention phase (B) and a no-intervention withdrawal phase (A). There were six sessions in each phase, making a total of 18 sessions. Tele-cognitive rehabilitation software was tailor-made according to each subject's cognitive functional needs. To monitor the change in cognitive functions, variables were tapped by tailor-made assessment and qualitative questionnaires through interviews, and they were then used to explore subjects' opinions of the programme and to test the treatment efficacy of the tele-cognitive rehabilitation programme. Finally, the relationships among the three phases were analysed through visual analysis and trend line analysis by means of the split-middle method. The three persons with brain injury showed improving trends and levels of specific cognitive performance during the treatment phase. Qualitative findings were analysed and confirmed the efficacy of the treatment module. The tele-cognitive rehabilitation approach was well received by subjects. The authors suggest that further replication studies of this kind should be conducted in the future and that more subjects should be recruited to improve the generalizability of the results. Copyright © 2003 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source]

The effect of implementation intentions on prospective memory performance across the lifespan

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 5 2010
Thomas D. Zimmermann
Differences in the amount and availability of cognitive resources may be responsible for age-related differences in event-based prospective memory tasks. We hypothesised that a manipulation which reduces resource requirements by enhancing automatic processing will reduce age differences. Implementation intentions are assumed to satisfy this requirement. We tested a total of 563 participants, 185 adolescents, 193 young adults and 185 older adults in order to investigate whether providing participants with implementation intention instructions would improve performance, whether any improvement would vary with age, and whether it would affect the prospective component or the retrospective component. The results showed a benefit of implementation intentions for older adults, but not for adolescents and for young adults. Separate analyses for the prospective and the retrospective components revealed that this effect was based mainly on a performance facilitation of the prospective component. These results suggest that implementation intentions provide a means to reduce age differences in prospective memory. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Cognitively impaired older adults exhibit comparable difficulties on naturalistic and laboratory prospective memory tasks

Interruptions create prospective memory tasks

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2009
Rahul M. Dodhia
When the theory of prospective memory is brought to bear on the ubiquitous experience of failing to resume interrupted tasks, the cognitive reasons for these failures may be understood and addressed. We examine three features of interruptions that may account for these failures: (1) Interruptions often abruptly divert attention, which may prevent adequate encoding of an intention to resume and forming an implementation plan, (2) New task demands after an interruption's end reduce opportunity to interpret resumption cues, (3) The transition after an interruption to new ongoing task demands is not distinctive because it is defined conceptually, rather than by a single perceptual cue. Hypotheses based on these three features receive support from two experiments that respectively manipulate encoding and retrieval conditions. The data support our contention that interrupted tasks are a special case of prospective memory, and allow us to suggest practical ways of reducing vulnerability to resumption failure. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Breaks and task switches in prospective memory

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 5 2006
Kraig Finstad
Based on research showing that easing task demands improves prospective memory, we examined the effects of breaks and task switches on prospective memory. The first experiment suggested that people tend not to take advantage of breaks to improve prospective memory unless specifically instructed to do so. The next two experiments showed that both breaks and task switches interfered with prospective memory. The results indicate that work settings with frequent breaks and task switches may be especially susceptible to prospective memory failure. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Transfer appropriate processing for prospective memory tests

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 7 2000
Beat Meier
Transfer appropriate processing (TAP) is the assumption that retrospective memory test performance reflects the overlap between study and test phase processing. In a task analysis, we identify a similar sequential-type of processing overlap in prospective memory (ProM) situations. In addition, ProM test performance can also involve a concurrent overlap between processes engaged for an ongoing task and those required for recognizing relevant cues. A review of the ProM literature shows consistent TAP effects due to sequential processing overlap manipulations, but inconclusive findings for concurrent processing overlap manipulations. We examined the latter in a new experiment with young adult participants. The ongoing task required either semantic or perceptual processing of words, and the ProM task required either semantic or perceptual processing of words. Consistent with TAP, performance was higher when the ongoing task and the ProM task required the same kind of processing (i.e. semantic,semantic, perceptual,perceptual) rather than different kinds of processing (i.e. semantic,perceptual, perceptual,semantic). Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Virtual week and actual week: Age-related differences in prospective memory

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 7 2000
Peter G. Rendell
Several previous studies have shown that whereas young adults perform better than older adults on prospective memory (PM) tasks in the laboratory, this superiority is often reversed in real-life PM tasks. The present studies investigated this paradox by creating a laboratory task in the form of a board game (Virtual Week) that mimicked many features of daily living. It was hypothesized that older adults might use strategies derived from their more structured lives to outperform young adults on the board game. However, contrary to our prediction, it was found that younger adults were superior. In Experiment 2 we had participants perform very similar PM tasks in real life (Actual Week), and found that now the older adults were generally superior to their younger counterparts. Possible reasons are discussed for this striking age-related difference between laboratory-based and naturalistic PM tasks. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]