The impact of age, ongoing task difficulty, and cue salience on preschoolers’ prospective memory performance: The role of executive function

How do the cognitive processes matter in the event-based preschoolers' prospective memory?

Background

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to perform an intended action at a specific future moment. The current study examined the impact of age, task focality, and cue salience on PM in children aged 2 to 6 years, based on the multiprocess theory of PM and the executive framework of PM development. Additionally, the study explored the relationship between various cognitive abilities and their association with PM performance.

Methods

A total of 224 preschool-aged children, aged 2-6, engaged in event-based PM tasks with varying cognitive demands. The tasks were either focal or nonfocal, with salient or nonsalient cues. Additionally, individual differences in cognitive abilities were measured.

Results

The results support previous indications that even very young children can successfully complete event-based PM tasks. The accuracy of PM display improved with age, especially between the ages of 3 and 4. Better performance was observed in focal PM tasks compared to nonfocal PM tasks. Additionally, preschoolers' PM performance correlated with various cognitive abilities, including fluid intelligence, retrospective memory, inhibitory control, working memory, and language ability. These correlations varied depending on the child's age and the task's nature. For both focal and nonfocal PM tasks, cognitive abilities partially mediated the relationship between age and PM performance.

Conclusion

In summary, this study comprehensively explores the specific roles played by age and fundamental cognitive abilities in event-based PM performance among preschool-aged children.

Habitual prospective memory in preschool children

Habitual prospective memory (PM) refers to situations in which individuals have to remember to perform a future task on a regular and frequent basis. Habitual PM tasks are ubiquitous and the ability to successfully complete these tasks (e.g., remembering to bring your lunch to school every day) is necessary for children as they begin to establish their own independence. The current investigation is the first to explore preschool children's ability to complete this kind of task. At the end of a regular testing session during which children engaged in a variety of unrelated cognitive tasks, participants were instructed to ask for a stamp on their card, which was sitting in a box on the table. Over the course of the first experiment, participants did this 13 times, spanning a time period of several months. The results demonstrated that children initially needed prompting from the experimenter to remember, but with experience, participants were able to retrieve this intention without assistance. Experiment 2 demonstrated that removing the box from participants' line of sight after numerous opportunities to perform the task did not negatively impact performance, although it did make a difference at the outset of this requirement to remember to ask for stamps. Together, these results indicate that with somewhat consistent and repeated practice, preschool children can fairly quickly demonstrate the ability to successfully perform future intentions that are likely to be repeated on numerous occasions.

Do emotionally salient cues improve prospective memory performance in children and adolescents with autism?

BACKGROUND

Prospective memory (PM) describes the ability to initiate and perform a planned action after a delay. Previous studies suggest reduced PM in autism spectrum disorder (ASD); especially when tasks put high demands on executive control resources. Increasing cue salience by presenting emotional cues improves PM performance in non-autistic populations.

AIMS

To explore whether children with ASD, whose processing of emotionally connoted information might differ from that of typically developing children, may also benefit from this type of salience in PM tasks.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

Twenty-five children with and 25 children without ASD completed a 1-back ongoing task into which an event-based PM task was embedded. Emotional salience of PM cues was varied.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

Children with ASD performed as well as children without ASD on the PM task and equally benefited from emotionally salient cues. Specifically, negative cues increased PM performance compared to neutral cues in both groups CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The findings are consistent with the multiprocess framework which postulates that salient PM cues increase performance by promoting automatic intention retrieval and reducing executive control demands. Children with ASD seem to show similar comprehension and accessibility to emotional cues as typically developing children.

Event-Related Brain Potential Correlates of Event-Based Prospective Memory in Children With Learning Disability

Prospective memory (PM) has been reported to be impaired in children with learning disabilities (LD), but few studies have examined the underlying neural mechanism of this impairment. To address this issue, the present study applied ERP technique to explore the difference of event-based prospective memory (EBPM) in 21 children with LD and 20 non-LD children with double task paradigm. Results from behavioral data showed that LD children exhibited lower accuracy than non-LD children. The ERP results showed that the two groups displayed significant difference in the ERP components, with longer N300 latency in LD group, but there was no obvious difference found in the prospective positivity component. The present findings seem to indicate that the poor performance of LD children on PM task might be result from deficits in PM cues detection. These results provided evidence for the existence of altered PM processing in LD children, which was characterized by a selective deficit in cues detection of PM. Therefore, these findings shed new light on the neurophysiological processes underlying PM in children with LD.

Young children spontaneously devise an optimal external solution to a cognitive problem

Metacognition plays an essential role in adults' cognitive offloading decisions. Despite possessing basic metacognitive capacities, however, preschool-aged children often fail to offload effectively. Here, we introduced 3- to 5-year-olds to a novel search task in which they were unlikely to perform optimally across trials without setting external reminders about the location of a target. Children watched as an experimenter first hid a target in one of three identical opaque containers. The containers were then shuffled out of view before children had to guess where the target was hidden. In the test phase, children could perform perfectly by simply placing a marker in a transparent jar attached to the target container prior to shuffling, and then later selecting the marked container. Children of all ages used this external strategy above chance levels if they had seen it demonstrated to them, but only the 4- and 5-year-olds independently devised the strategy to improve their future performance. These results suggest that, when necessary for optimal performance, even 4- and 5-year-olds can use metacognitive knowledge about their own future uncertainty to deploy effective external solutions.

Focality and prospective memory in preschool children

We examined the influence of prospective memory (PM) cue focality in a sample of preschool children. Prior investigations in older populations indicated that focal targets were associated with enhanced PM performance, perhaps through more automatic retrieval processes. Importantly, this influential variable has not been thoroughly explored in younger samples. Over three test sessions, preschool children completed a memory task where they were shown a series of animals. During retrieval, participants were shown all of the animals except for one, and they had to name the missing animal. While engaged in this task, participants in the focal PM condition were instructed to remove particular animals (e.g., spider) from the game if they saw them. In the nonfocal condition, participants were told to remove any animal that was entirely one color (e.g., black) if they saw them during the game. The results demonstrated no difference in PM remembering between focal and nonfocal conditions. These results suggest that the effects of focality may not be present at the beginning stages of PM development. The implications for PM retrieval processes also are discussed.

Did you hear? Auditory prospective memory cues are more beneficial for autistic than for non-autistic children and adolescents

BACKGROUND

The transition from primary to secondary school is particularly difficult for autistic children, a transition underpinned by an increase in prospective memory (PM) demands.

AIMS

To better understand PM in autistic children of the relevant age range and its underlying processes, the current study investigated the impact of cue salience (distinctiveness) on PM in autistic and non-autistic children and adolescents. The study was unique in manipulating the visual and auditory salience of PM cues. Salient cues are assumed to put lower demands on executive control resources as compared to cues that blend in with the ongoing activity.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

The children completed a computer-based categorisation task in which an event-based PM task was embedded. The salience of PM cues was manipulated (low, high visual and high auditory salience).

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

Results revealed that both groups benefitted from an increase in visual and auditory salience, but only autistic participants were faster to respond to auditory cues.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Increased cue salience improved PM performance for all children. Positive effects of auditory cues were especially evident in autistic children.

Inhibitory control in prospective memory: An event related potential comparison of task-switch and dual task processing

This study cross-validates reported changes in behavioural and event-related potential (ERP) correlates of prospective memory (PM) inhibitory control performance applying different PM response selection demands (Bisiacchi et al., 2009). Participants were randomly assigned to a control group condition with no PM requirement, or to either inhibit ongoing task processing to respond to PM task cues (task-switch; TS) or provide an ongoing task response prior to providing a PM button press (dual-task; DT). The behavioural data indicated that ongoing task reaction time (RT) performance was similar in the DT, TS, and control group conditions. PM cue detection mechanisms reflected by the N300 did not differ between PM tasks. However, early occurring (400-700 ms) PM late parietal complex (LPC) amplitudes recorded over anterior electrode sites were larger in the TS compared to the DT-PM condition, and this difference persisted during the 700-1000 ms epoch. Thus, ERP correlates of PM task-set remapping were significantly altered via the induction of different PM response production rules retrieved from retrospective memory (RM). The enhancement of anteriorly distributed TS LPC amplitudes between 400 and 700 ms led to the suggestion that increased inhibition in this group condition was accompanied by heightened frontally mediated neural activations that support prepotent ongoing task response inhibition processing.

Salient cues facilitate automatic processes in prospective memory

Salient cues can improve prospective memory performance. This effect is usually explained through the multiprocess framework, which suggests that salient cues recruit more automatic processes and require fewer cognitive resources than nonsalient cues. However, this explanation lacks direct empirical support, as the accuracy and response time data obtained in behavioral experiments are inadequate for providing an index to indicate the extent to which cognitive resources are recruited. To overcome this difficulty, the present study aimed to use the event-related potentials (ERP) technique to investigate the neurocognitive differences between the processing of salient and nonsalient prospective memory cues and verify whether salient cues facilitate automatic processes. Two experimental conditions were designed to manipulate the salience of prospective memory cues. During an ongoing task, participants were required to detect the word 'apple' (nonsalient prospective memory cue condition) or the red words (salient prospective memory cue condition). The results showed that the nonsalient prospective memory trials elicited sustained larger amplitudes than ongoing trials, whereas the salient prospective memory trials elicited sustained smaller amplitudes than ongoing trials, suggesting that the processing of salient prospective memory cues requires fewer cognitive resources compared to the nonsalient prospective memory cues. Moreover, resource-demanding ERP components were elicited in the processing of nonsalient prospective memory cues, but salient prospective memory cues were not. These results demonstrate that salient cues may facilitate automatic processes in prospective memory.

"I'll remember everything no matter what!": The role of metacognitive abilities in the development of young children's prospective memory

Prospective memory (PM), the ability to remember to carry out future intentions, is a critical skill for children's daily activities. Despite this, little is known about young children's awareness of their PM ability (metamemory), how metamemory is affected by PM task difficulty, and how metacognitive abilities might be related to metamemory. The current study examined the effect of task difficulty on children's PM predictions, actual performance, and postdictions and relations among episodic memory metamemory, metacognitive control, and executive functioning. Children aged 4 to 6 years (N = 131) made PM predictions, completed an easy or difficult PM task, and then made PM postdictions. Children also made predictions and postdictions for their performance on an episodic recall task and then completed an independent measure of metacognitive control and two measures of executive function (working memory and inhibition). Results showed that (a) children's PM increased with age and was worse in the difficult PM task condition, (b) PM predictions and postdictions did not increase with age and only PM postdictions were affected by PM task difficulty; (c) children's PM and episodic recall predictions and postdictions were more accurate with age, (d) children's PM postdictions best predicted PM performance, whereas predictions best predicted episodic recall task performance, and (e) children with better metacognitive control had better PM and more accurate PM predictions. These results are discussed in terms of young children's optimism surrounding their memory performance and the emergence of early metacognitive abilities.

Revealing the dynamics of prospective memory processes in children with eye movements

Prospective memory (PM), the memory for delayed intentions, develops during childhood. The current study examined PM processes, such as monitoring, PM cue identification and intention retrieval with particular focus on their temporal dynamics and interrelations during successful and unsuccessful PM performance. We analysed eye movements of 6-7 and 9-10 year olds during the inspection of movie stills while they completed one of three different tasks: scene viewing followed by a snippet allocation task, a PM task and a visual search task. We also tested children's executive functions of inhibition, flexibility and working memory. We found that older children outperformed younger children in all tasks but neither age group showed variations in monitoring behaviour during the course of the PM task. In fact, neither age group monitored. According to our data, initial processes necessary for PM success take place during the first fixation on the PM cue. In PM hit trials we found prolonged fixations after the first fixation on the PM cue, and older children showed a greater efficiency in PM processes following this first PM cue fixation. Regarding executive functions, only working memory had a significant effect on children's PM performance. Across both age groups children with better working memory scores needed less time to react to the PM cue. Our data support the notion that children rely on spontaneous processes to notice the PM cue, followed by a resource intensive search for the intended action.

I could do it now, but I'd rather (forget to) do it later: examining links between procrastination and prospective memory failures

Prospective memory (PM) represents the ability to remember to perform planned actions after a certain delay. As previous studies suggest that even brief task-delays can negatively affect PM performance, the current study set out to examine whether procrastination (intentionally delaying task execution despite possible negative consequences) may represent a factor contributing to PM failures. Specifically, we assessed procrastination (via a standardized questionnaire as well as an objective behavioral measure) and PM failures (via a naturalistic PM task) in 92 young adults. Results show that participants' self-reports as well as their actual procrastination behavior predicted the number of PM failures, corroborating the impact of procrastination on PM. Subsequent cluster analyses suggest three distinct procrastination profiles (non-procrastinators, conscious procrastinators and unconscious procrastinators), providing new conceptual insights into different mechanisms of how procrastinating may lead to forgetting to perform planned tasks.

A comprehensive examination of the memory profile of youth with Down syndrome in comparison to typically developing peers

Down syndrome (DS) is associated with significant memory deficits beyond overall global cognitive impairment. Although a number of studies have examined memory abilities in adults and teens with DS, very few studies have examined memory abilities in children with DS. Additionally, research has yet to examine prospective memory (i.e., remembering to carry out an action in the future) in youth with DS. Consequently, the current study aimed to comprehensively examine the memory profile, including learning, immediate recall, delayed recall and prospective memory, of youth with DS (n = 22, age M = 11.43) in comparison to typically developing, mental-age (MA) matched children (n = 20, age M = 5.04) Consistent with past research, the results indicated that youth with DS performed significantly below MA-expectations on tasks of immediate verbal recall, learning across trials, and prospective memory, and there was a trend toward youth with DS performing below MA-expectations on delayed recall tasks. However, youth with DS did not differ significantly from MA-matched peers on immediate visual recall, rate of learning across trials, or proportion of items recalled on verbal and visual memory tasks following a delay (i.e., proportion relative to their own recall performance prior to the delay). These results highlight the relative strengths and challenges experienced by youth with DS on different learning and memory tasks. The implications of these findings for educators and caregivers are discussed.

Prospective Memory in Adolescents with Autism: A Preliminary Study of the Impact of Memory Load

We evaluated event-based prospective memory (EBPM) in adolescents with Autism, varying the load of the to-be-performed intentions. We included measures of inhibition, working memory and binding. Results showed that increasing the retrospective memory load reduced performance in controls. In Autism, adolescents were impaired in the low load condition with normal performance for the ongoing task, with the reverse pattern in the high load condition. EBPM may be impacted in Autism due to difficulty to process ongoing and EBPM tasks simultaneously possibly because of restricted inhibitory control.

The Cost of Prospective Memory in Children: The Role of Cue Focality

Prospective memory (PM) is an essential ability in daily life, since it involves remembering to perform an intention. While PM largely develops during childhood and adolescence, its underlying mechanisms are still poorly understood. In general, age differences in PM have been found with tasks in which the prospective cues are not part of the ongoing activity (non-focal PM tasks). In the present study, we evaluated the cognitive cost produced by a PM task over the ongoing activity by comparing the performance of a single-task condition with that of an ongoing activity condition involving a prospective intention. Specifically, to determine the impact of cue focality on performance as a function of age, we tested two groups of children (6 and 11 years old) in three experimental conditions: single, focal and non-focal prospective cues. In the single-task condition, children were only asked to perform the ongoing task (to categorize images as animal or non-animal). In the focal condition, in addition to performing the ongoing activity, participants were asked to press different keys whenever the image appearing on the screen was a kite or a ball. In the non-focal condition, children were to press the keys if the color of the frame of the screen changed to magenta or gray. Although reaction times were greater for the non-focal conditions in both age groups, the results showed worse performance on the ongoing activity for both the focal and the non-focal conditions (relative to the single-task condition) in the younger children. This difference was less pronounced in older children so that response times for focal and non-focal cues differed from the single condition, but the difference in performance between focal and single task conditions was not reliable. These findings, which are partly in line with the dual process framework (McDaniel et al., 2015), suggest that while non-focal prospective cues compromise attentional control in younger and older children, focal cues seem to rely on less effortful processes in older children.

Behavioural flexibility of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder on a card-sorting task with varying task difficulty

Inflexibility is taken to be a key characteristic of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), although it is unclear which aspect of cognitive functioning is critical in this context. The current study investigated task-switching problems and inflexibility with a group of children with ASD, and a mental-aged matched control group. Participants (n = 50; mean age = 7 years) completed two card-sorting tasks, which involved learning to sort by either two or three possible dimensions, and then the sorting rule was switched although the number of dimensions required to sort the cards remained the same. Following the sorting rule change, the ASD group made more errors compared to controls. Errors were also related to task type (two or three dimensions), but this was not found to interact with ASD. If poor performance were solely dependent on executive function (working memory) problems in ASD, then a steeper decrease in performance with an increase in task difficulty for one group, compared to another group, would be expected. The current results suggest that task difficulty is an aspect of importance in set-shifting, but shifting is not differentially affected by this component.

Calendaring and alarms can improve naturalistic time-based prospective memory for youth infected with HIV

Individuals with HIV disease often evidence deficits in prospective memory (PM), which interfere with daily functioning and increase the risk of suboptimal health behaviours. This study examined the benefits of simple encoding and cueing supports on naturalistic time-based PM in 47 HIV-positive young adults. All participants completed a naturalistic time-based PM task in which they were instructed to text the examiner once per day for seven days at a specified time. Participants were randomised into (1) a Calendaring condition in which they created a calendar event in their mobile telephone for the specified texting time; (2) an Alarm condition in which they programmed an alarm into their mobile telephone for the specified texting time; (3) a Combined calendaring and alarm condition; and (4) a Control condition. Participants in the Combined condition demonstrated significantly better naturalistic PM performance than participants in the Control and Calendaring conditions. Findings indicate that HIV-positive young people may benefit from a combined calendaring and alarm supportive strategy for successful execution of future intentions in daily life.

An Investigation of Prospective Memory with Output Monitoring in Preschool Children

The ability to perform an intended behavior in some future circumstance, known as prospective memory (PM), is an important cognitive ability for young children to develop. In this study, we examined PM in preschool children, with the addition of an output monitoring component, which is the ability to remember whether a previously intended action was completed. Participants were engaged in an ongoing task of sorting cards with a variety of images such as animals, tools, and foods by the size of pictures on the card. They were also instructed to sort any cards with animals into cardboard boxes marked as zoos. The first time any given animal was seen, it was to be placed in “Zoo 1,” and if the same animal was noticed again, it was to be placed in “Zoo 2.” Participants completed the task 3 times (each with different targets) on 3 separate days. Participants’ PM accuracy improved with practice. There was a relationship between age and PM performance on the first trial, with older children detecting more PM targets. This relationship was not present on the second and third trials, and a significant relationship between ongoing task errors and PM performance emerged, such that making fewer errors on the sorting task was associated with better PM performance. Regarding output monitoring errors, children most frequently placed both occurrences of the same PM target in the first zoo.

Development of Children's Use of External Reminders for Hard-to-Remember Intentions

This study explored under what conditions young children would set reminders to aid their memory for delayed intentions. A computerized task requiring participants to carry out delayed intentions under varying levels of cognitive load was presented to 63 children (aged between 6.9 and 13.0 years old). Children of all ages demonstrated metacognitive predictions of their performance that were congruent with task difficulty. Only older children, however, set more reminders when they expected their future memory performance to be poorer. These results suggest that most primary school-aged children possess metacognitive knowledge about their prospective memory limits, but that only older children may be able to exercise the metacognitive control required to translate this knowledge into strategic reminder setting.

Episodic future thinking improves children's prospective memory performance in a complex task setting with real life task demands

Research on children's prospective memory (PM) shows an increase of performance across childhood and provides first evidence that encoding strategies such as episodic future thinking (EFT; i.e., engaging in a vivid prospection of oneself performing future tasks) may improve performance. The present study aimed at testing whether the beneficial effects of EFT extend from typical lab-based tasks to more complex tasks with real life demands. Further, it was tested whether children's ability to project themselves into different perspectives (i.e., self-projection) moderates the effects of EFT encoding on PM. Overall, 56 children (mean age: M = 10.73 years) were included in this study who were randomly assigned to either an EFT or control condition. Children participated in a 'sightseeing tour' (ongoing activity) inside the lab with various socially relevant and neutral PM tasks embedded. Results showed significantly higher PM performance in the EFT compared to the control group. There was no difference between neutral and social PM tasks and no interaction between type of PM tasks with encoding condition. Further, self-projection did not moderate the effects of EFT encoding on PM. Results suggest that EFT is an effective strategy to improve children's everyday PM. These beneficial effects seem to occur independent from children's general ability to change perspectives and for different types of PM tasks.

Time-based prospective memory difficulties in children with ADHD and the role of time perception and working memory

Time-based prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to perform an intended action at a given time in the future. It is a competence that is crucial for effective performance in everyday life and may be one of the main causes of problems for individuals who have difficulty in planning and organizing their life, such as children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study systematically examines different aspects of time-based PM performance in a task that involves taking an action at a given future time in a group of 23 children with ADHD who were compared with a matched group of typically-developing (TD) children. The children were asked to watch a cartoon and then answer a questionnaire about its content (ongoing task). They were also asked to press a key every 2 minutes while watching the cartoon (PM task). The relationships of time perception and verbal working memory with PM performance were examined by administering appropriate tasks. The results showed that the children with ADHD were less accurate than the TD children in the PM task and exhibited less strategic time-monitoring behavior. Time perception was found to predict PM accuracy, whereas working memory was mainly involved in time-monitoring behavior, but this applied more to the TD group than to the ADHD group, suggesting that children with ADHD are less able to use their cognitive resources when meeting a PM request.

Time-based prospective memory in adults with developmental dyslexia

Prospective memory (PM) is memory for delayed intentions. Despite its importance to everyday life, the few studies on PM function in adults with dyslexia which exist have relied on self-report measures. To determine whether self-reported PM deficits can be measured objectively, laboratory-based PM tasks were administered to 24 adults with dyslexia and 25 age- and IQ-matched adults without dyslexia. Self-report data indicated that people with dyslexia felt that time-based PM (TBPM; requiring responses at certain times in the future) was most problematic for them and so this form of PM was the focus of investigation. Whilst performing the ongoing task from which they were required to break out every 3 min to make a PM-related response, the participants were allowed to make clock checks whenever they wished. The cognitive demands made on ongoing behaviour were manipulated to determine whether loading executive resources had a mediating role in dyslexia-related deficits in PM, resulting in three tasks with varying working memory load. A semi-naturalistic TBPM task was also administered, in which the participants were asked to remind the experimenter to save a data file 40 min after being given this instruction. Dyslexia-related differences were found across all three computerized tasks, regardless of cognitive load. The adults with dyslexia made fewer correct PM responses and also fewer clock checks. On the semi-naturalistic task, the participants with dyslexia were less likely to remember to remind the experimenter to save the file. This is the first study to document PM deficits in dyslexia using objective measures of performance. Since TBPM impairments were found under more naturalistic conditions as well as on computerized tasks, the results have implications for workplace support for adults with dyslexia.

The Role of Extrinsic Rewards and Cue-Intention Association in Prospective Memory in Young Children

The current study examined, for the first time, the effect of cue-intention association, as well as the effects of promised extrinsic rewards, on prospective memory in young children, aged 5-years-old (n = 39) and 7-years-old (n = 40). Children were asked to name pictures for a toy mole, whilst also having to remember to respond differently to certain target pictures (prospective memory task). The level to which the target picture was associated with the intention was manipulated across two conditions (low- or high-association) for all participants, whilst half of the participants were promised a reward for good prospective memory performance. Results showed a main effect of age, with the 7-year-olds outperforming the 5-year-olds. Furthermore, there was a main effect of reward, with those promised a reward performing better than those who were not. No effect was found for cue-association, with the participants of both age groups performing equally well in both association conditions. No significant interactions were found between any of the variables. The potentially important role of reward in young children's everyday prospective memory tasks, and possible reasons for the lack of a reflexive-associative effect, are discussed.

Prospective Memory, Executive Functions, and Metacognition Are Already Differentiated in Young Elementary School Children

Abstract. This study investigated the empirical differentiation of prospective memory, executive functions, and metacognition and their structural relationships in 119 elementary school children (M = 95 months, SD = 4.8 months). These cognitive abilities share many characteristics on the theoretical level and are all highly relevant in many everyday contexts when intentions must be executed. Nevertheless, their empirical relationships have not been examined on the latent level, although an empirical approach would contribute to our knowledge concerning the differentiation of cognitive abilities during childhood. We administered a computerized event-based prospective memory task, three executive function tasks (updating, inhibition, shifting), and a metacognitive control task in the context of spelling. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the three cognitive abilities are already empirically differentiable in young elementary school children. At the same time, prospective memory and executive functions were found to be strongly related, and there was also a close link between prospective memory and metacognitive control. Furthermore, executive functions and metacognitive control were marginally significantly related. The findings are discussed within a framework of developmental differentiation and conceptual similarities and differences.

Inhibitory Control is Associated with Psychosocial, Cognitive, and Weight Outcomes in a Longitudinal Sample of Girls

Early self-regulation abilities have been highlighted as a robust predictor of adaptive development, but the extant literature has typically focused on outcomes in different developmental domains separately. The aim of the current study was to expand upon this research by testing pathways from girls' inhibitory control at age 7, an aspect of self-regulation, to their psychosocial, cognitive, and weight outcomes from ages 9 to 15 (n=192). Results supported the hypothesis that greater inhibitory control is independently associated with better subsequent psychosocial, cognitive, and weight outcomes. These findings, combined with evidence that self-regulatory capacities are modifiable in early childhood, offer opportunities for interdisciplinary preventive interventions aiming to promote child health and well-being across domains and over time.

The impact of cognitive control on children's goal monitoring in a time-based prospective memory task

The present study investigated whether developmental changes in cognitive control may underlie improvements of time-based prospective memory. Five-, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds (N = 166) completed a driving simulation task (ongoing task) in which they had to refuel their vehicle at specific points in time (PM task). The availability of cognitive control resources was experimentally manipulated by imposing a secondary task that required divided attention. Children completed the driving simulation task both in a full-attention condition and a divided-attention condition where they had to carry out a secondary task. Results revealed that older children performed better than younger children on the ongoing task and PM task. Children performed worse on the ongoing and PM tasks in the divided-attention condition compared to the full-attention condition. With respect to time monitoring in the final interval prior to the PM target, divided attention interacted with age such that older children's time monitoring was more negatively affected by the secondary task compared to younger children. Results are discussed in terms of developmental shifts from reactive to proactive monitoring strategies.