Regularity effect in prospective memory during aging

The Processing Mechanism of Repetitive Practice Affecting Time-Based Prospective Memory

Time-based prospective memory (TBPM) refers to performing intended actions at a specific time in the future. The TBPM task is very common in daily life, and whether it can be successfully completed can affect our quality of life. Repeated behavior training can usually improve social cognitive performance, and this study focused on exploring whether TBPM performance could improve with repeated behavior training. Meanwhile, we also focused on whether behavior training could reduce attention consumption, both internal and external, attention on TBPM tasks. In this study, a single-factor between-subject design was adopted. Seventy-three undergraduates were assigned to three groups: the control group, the baseline group, and the experimental group. The baseline group only needs to perform ongoing tasks, so the ongoing task performance of the control group will not be affected by TBPM tasks. The control group needs to perform both ongoing and TBPM tasks without practice. The experimental group needs to perform both ongoing and TBPM tasks after 30 exercises. The ongoing task is a typical working memory task. The TBPM task was to press a "1" button every 1 min. The results showed that the performance of ongoing tasks in the baseline group, experimental group, and control group decreased sequentially, and the experimental group had less time monitoring than the control group. The results indicated that behavior training could reduce attention consumption in both internal attention and external attention, but it could not reach the level of automatic processing.

Prospective memory assessment: Scientific advances and future directions

Prospective Memory (PM), the ability to remember to realize intended actions in the future, is crucial for maintaining autonomy. Decades of research has focused on a so-called age PM paradox, where older adults outperformed younger adults on some PM tasks, but not others. Contributing to this paradox is heterogeneity in and a lack of valid assessment methods. Previous research showed a lack of convergent validity between performance-based PM and both self-report and informant-report measures. We argue that questionnaires may be relevant to obtain information regarding patients’ awareness of their PM difficulties but need to be used in conjunction with performance-based tools. Within performance-based PM tools there are also difficulties in measurement: 15–60 min experimental tasks and batteries have a good reliability but cannot usually fit in a standard clinical evaluation, while shorter PM measures have lower reliability and sensitivity. In this perspective paper, we encourage researchers to develop more ecologically valid tools. Innovative PM paradigms that allow participants to generate their own intentions and that take task costs into consideration should be developed. Future research will also need to focus on cognitive factors, personality and online evaluation, to improve PM assessment and develop ad-hoc rehabilitation programs.

Effective external reminders impair the practice effect of time-based prospective memory

The practice effect of time-based prospective memory (TBPM) refers to the phenomenon that TBPM task performance can be significantly improved by repetitive behavioural training. However, reminders are a common strategy for people to perform TBPM tasks in daily life. A large amount of evidence shows that reminders can improve TBPM performance when individuals pay less attention to time information. However, the present study was the first to explore whether external reminders might simultaneously impede the practice effect of TBPM. In this study, 81 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to control group (N = 27, M_age  = 20.00, SD_age  = 1.04), reminder group (N = 26, M_age  = 20.35, SD_age  = 1.70) and non-reminder group (N = 28, M_age  = 20.25, SD_age  = 1.17). In the training stage, the reminder group could receive effective external reminders, while the non-reminder group could not. The results of the training stage revealed that compared with the non-reminder group, the reminder group had fewer time monitoring times and better TBPM performance. In the testing stage, when reminders were removed from the reminder group, we found that compared with the control group without TBPM training, the TBPM performance of the reminder group failed to improve, while that of the non-reminder group improved significantly. Meanwhile, the time estimation ability of the reminder group was not as improved as that of the non-reminder group.

The Cognitive Mechanism of the Practice Effect of Time-Based Prospective Memory: The Role of Time Estimation

Remembering to perform delayed intentions at a specific time point or period is referred to as time-based prospective memory (TBPM). The practice effect of TBPM is the phenomenon that TBPM performance improves via repeated PM training. In the present study, our main purpose was to explore the cognitive mechanism of the practice effect of TBPM, specifically the role of time estimation in the practice effect. We adopted a simple retrospective component of TBPM (pressing 1 key) in the present study, facilitating a closer look at the role of time estimation. In Experiment 1, the experimental group received 20 TBPM tasks training and some ongoing tasks training, while the control group only received some ongoing tasks training. We found that TBPM and time estimation abilities of experimental group were all better than those of control group. It proved that the practice effect of TBPM was closely related to the improvement of time estimation ability. In Experiment 2, we used time estimation training instead of TBPM training used in Experiment 1. The results of Experiment 2 were basically the same as those of Experiment 1. It further confirmed that time estimation played a key role in the practice effect of TBPM.

The Practice Effect on Time-Based Prospective Memory: The Influences of Ongoing Task Difficulty and Delay

The practice effect on prospective memory refers to the phenomenon that prospective memory performance can improve with behavior training. Some studies have found that event-based prospective memory (EBPM) can benefit from practice. However, only a few studies have focused on the practice effect on time-based prospective memory (TBPM). In the present study, we planned to explore whether the practice effect on TBPM existed and what its processing mechanism was. In Experiment 1, we tested whether the practice effect existed at all under different background task conditions. The results showed that the practice effect existed only under an easy ongoing task condition. When a 600 ms delay was added after each difficult ongoing task in Experiment 2, we found the same effect as for the easy ongoing task condition in Experiment 1. In addition, the results also suggested that the practice effect was closely related to the improvement in the effectiveness of time monitoring. The present study confirmed the existence of practice effect of TBPM under some conditions of sufficient attention resources and further explored its causes for the first time, which made us have a deeper understanding of the plasticity of TBPM caused by behavior training.