Training and transfer effects of prospective memory training in 13- to 15-year-old children

Abstract

Prospective memory (PM) plays a crucial role in children’s academic achievement and interpersonal relationships. However, there is a lack of studies exploring training and transfer effects of process-based PM training in healthy young adolescents. In the current study, 13- to 15-year-old children participated in an 8-day PM training program using the Virtual Week computer game. Transfer of training benefits was measured using other PM tasks (near transfer) and tasks measuring various aspects of executive function (EF) and general intelligence (far transfer). An active control group was used as comparison to assess transfer effects immediately after training and 3 and/or 6 months after training. After training, the trained children performed better on the trained PM task than the control children, and this benefit was still present after 6 months. Significant training-induced positive transfer was observed in tasks measuring time-based PM and working memory updating, although the benefits were rather short-lived. No differential, training-induced benefits were found for any of the other transfer tasks. These results suggest some limited potential of PM training to enhance some aspects of PM memory and EF in young adolescents.