Abstract
Prospective memory (PM), the ability to initiate and implement delayed intentions, increases across childhood and adolescence. Previous evidence on older adults indicated beneficial effects of implementation intentions (an encoding strategy) on individuals’ PM performance; especially when cognitive control demands were high and availability of cognitive resources low. This research program set out to investigate the impact of implementation intentions on children’s and adolescents’ PM while simultaneously varying cognitive control demands of the PM paradigm. Across two studies, implementation intention encoding was contrasted with standard encoding. In addition, Study 1 manipulated task importance (i.e., the strategic allocation of cognitive resources) and Study 2 switching demands of the ongoing task (i.e., the availability of cognitive resources). Overall 306 9-, 12- and 15-year-olds participated. Both studies revealed significant PM improvements from childhood to adolescence. Effects of task importance were reflected in PM reaction times but not in PM accuracy (Study 1). Participants showed longer reaction times when PM task importance was emphasized. Manipulations of switching demands of the ongoing task resulted in significantly increased PM accuracy and faster response times in the low- compared to the high-switching load task condition (Study 2). Neither Study 1 nor Study 2 showed beneficial effects of implementation intentions compared to simple PM instructions. Further, encoding condition did not interact with cognitive control conditions. Thus, findings of PM improvements following implementation intention encoding in older adults do not seem to extend to children and adolescents. Results are discussed in the light of current PM models.
Introduction
Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability of initiating and implementing intentions at an appropriate future (time-) point (McDaniel & Einstein, 2007). Depending on the cue that indicates the appropriate moment for intention initiation and execution, two types of PM tasks can be differentiated: Time-based PM, i.e. remembering to initiate the intended action at a certain time-point in the future or when a certain period of time has elapsed (e.g., attending a meeting at 3 pm) vs. event-based PM, which requires intention initiation when a certain external cue appears (e.g., passing a message to a friend when meeting him, Ellis, 1996). PM tasks are dual-task situations consisting of an ongoing activity and the PM task itself. Thus, both tasks compete for the limited amount of cognitive resources (e.g., Kliegel, Martin, McDaniel, & Einstein, 2001) and require more or less direct attention to be executed.
PM performance increases from childhood across adolescence to young adulthood (e.g., Leigh & Marcovitch, 2014; Smith, Bayen, & Martin, 2010). This performance improvement seems to be driven by the parallel development of cognitive control functions (e.g., inhibition, updating and switching) as well as retrospective memory (for a review see Mahy, Moses, & Kliegel, 2014; Zuber and Kliegel, 2019).
Section snippets
Effects of PM cue features on PM retrieval
According to the multiprocess framework (McDaniel and Einstein (2000), task characteristics and individual difference variables affect the extent to which cognitive control processes are needed to succeed in PM tasks. For instance, perceptually salient PM cues (compared to the cues of the competing ongoing task) may capture attention more automatically, resulting in a rather spontaneous retrieval of the delayed intention, and rather automatic inhibition of the ongoing task and switching from
The present studies
The present studies aimed at thoroughly investigating event-based PM development in children and adolescents, while simultaneously testing for beneficial effects of implementation intentions under varying task conditions in these age groups (aims of Study 1 and Study 2). Specifically, Study 1 set out to test whether the allocation of cognitive resources to either the PM or the ongoing task (manipulated via importance instructions) affects PM performance and the effects of implementation
Participants
Overall, 171 individuals, consisting of 57 younger (age range: 9;01–10;01 years), 57 older school-aged children (age range: 11;09–13;02 years) and 57 adolescents (age range: 14;07–16;01 years), were included in this study. Participants were recruited from local schools and through advertisements. Children who were not able to recall or recognize all PM cues at the end of the testing session were excluded, resulting in a final sample of 124 individuals (30 younger, M = 9.10 years, SD = .31, 47
Study 2 – effects of implementation intentions and switching demands of the ongoing task on children’s and adolescents’ PM
This second study aimed at testing whether implementation intentions may prevent a decrease in PM performance in developing populations when the cognitive demands of the applied ongoing task are increased. Overall, the difficulty level of the ongoing task has been found to impact PM performance in different age groups; with worse performance in highly demanding task conditions as compared to less difficult task conditions (for a study on older adults, see e.g., Einstein, Smith, McDaniel, &
General discussion
The present studies provided a thorough investigation of event-based PM development in children and adolescents, while simultaneously testing effects of implementation intentions under varying task conditions in these age groups for the first time. Specifically, the allocation of cognitive resources to either the PM or the ongoing task and the availability of cognitive resources were manipulated via importance instructions (Study 1) and switching demands of the ongoing task (Study 2),
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the German Research Foundation, Germany (DFG grant SFB 940/1). The authors would like to thank the participants who took part in this study, and their parents, without whom this project would not have been possible. We would also like to thank Professor Peter Rendell for his invaluable support and advice.
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