Event versus activity-based cues and motivation in school-related prospective memory tasks.

Ana B Cejudo,M Teresa Bajo,Mark A Mcdaniel,Sam Gilbert

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0215845

Ana B Cejudo, M Teresa Bajo + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0215845

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Abstract

Prospective memory (PM), the ability to remember an intention in the future, is essential to children’s everyday lives. We explored age differences (6- to 7- vs. 10- to 11-year-olds) in PM depending on the nature of the task and the children’s motivation. Children performed event-based PM tasks (in which the cue was presented during the ongoing activity) and activity-based PM tasks (in which the cue consisted of finishing the ongoing activity). Additionally, the children were assigned to either a reward condition or a no-reward condition. The results showed better performance in event than in activity based tasks, with older children outperforming younger children in both. There was a marginal effect of reward for PM accuracy. These patterns suggest that the cue detection process and children’s motivation play a role in PM performance during development.

Highlights

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember a delayed intention
No age differences were found in the completion times for ongoing task (OT) performance, indicating that the OT was properly adapted to each age
We explored whether age differences in remembering an intention were modulated by the type of PM task and by children’s motivation

Summary

Introduction

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember a delayed intention. In event-based PM tasks, retrieval of an intention requires a trigger of an associated memory from some external cue (e.g., remembering to buy bread when passing the grocery store on the way home). In time-based PM tasks, the person intends to perform a task at a specific time, within a specific time period or when a period of time has elapsed (e.g., remembering to buy bread before 8 p.m., when the grocery store closes). Activity-based tasks require that intentions be retrieved and executed upon completing other tasks (e.g., remembering to buy bread after buying vegetables from the fruit stall). Successful completion of a PM task requires remembering an intention (e.g., press a key when red words appear on a screen) while performing another ongoing task (OT; e.g., answering general knowledge questions). At the appropriate moment or when the prospective cue appears, the person must stop performing the OT to instead perform the intention [2,3]

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