Investigating the Role of Executive Processes in Young Children's Prospective Memory

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to carry out one's intentions. This is a critical ability for children to develop in order to function independently in their daily activities. This dissertation examines the role of executive functioning in preschoolers' PM in two studi...

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Main Author: Mahy, Caitlin
Other Authors: Moses, Louis
Language:en_US
Published: University of Oregon 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12537
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spelling ndltd-uoregon.edu-oai-scholarsbank.uoregon.edu-1794-125372018-12-20T05:48:03Z Investigating the Role of Executive Processes in Young Children's Prospective Memory Mahy, Caitlin Mahy, Caitlin Moses, Louis Children Executive function Inhibitory control Monitoring Prospective memory Theory of mind Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to carry out one's intentions. This is a critical ability for children to develop in order to function independently in their daily activities. This dissertation examines the role of executive functioning in preschoolers' PM in two studies that vary the executive demand at different stages of the PM task. Study 1 investigated the role of task difficulty during the retention interval prior to the PM task. A difficult working memory task during the delay period resulted in worse PM performance in 4- and 5-year-olds compared to an easy working memory task. In addition, children's working memory, planning ability, and theory of mind correlated with PM but only in the difficult filler task condition. Study 2 examined age differences between 4- and 5-year-olds in PM task performance when the task: (1) was embedded in an easy or difficult ongoing task, (2) had an instruction to focus on the intention versus an instruction to focus on the distractor activity during the retention interval, and (3) varied in the salience of prospective targets. Overall, 5-year-olds performed better on the PM task than 4-year-olds. Children also had superior PM when targets were salient compared to non-salient and marginally superior PM when they received an instruction to monitor their intention compared to when they received an instruction to focus on the distractor activity. In addition, positive relations between executive functioning and PM were documented. Taken together, these studies suggest that disrupting or encouraging monitoring has a direct impact on PM performance in certain conditions. The implications of these results for theories that suggest differing roles for controlled processes in PM are discussed. 2012-12-07T23:13:19Z 2012-12-07T23:13:19Z 2012 Electronic Thesis or Dissertation http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12537 en_US This work is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ University of Oregon
collection NDLTD
language en_US
sources NDLTD
topic Children
Executive function
Inhibitory control
Monitoring
Prospective memory
Theory of mind
spellingShingle Children
Executive function
Inhibitory control
Monitoring
Prospective memory
Theory of mind
Mahy, Caitlin
Mahy, Caitlin
Investigating the Role of Executive Processes in Young Children's Prospective Memory
description Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to carry out one's intentions. This is a critical ability for children to develop in order to function independently in their daily activities. This dissertation examines the role of executive functioning in preschoolers' PM in two studies that vary the executive demand at different stages of the PM task. Study 1 investigated the role of task difficulty during the retention interval prior to the PM task. A difficult working memory task during the delay period resulted in worse PM performance in 4- and 5-year-olds compared to an easy working memory task. In addition, children's working memory, planning ability, and theory of mind correlated with PM but only in the difficult filler task condition. Study 2 examined age differences between 4- and 5-year-olds in PM task performance when the task: (1) was embedded in an easy or difficult ongoing task, (2) had an instruction to focus on the intention versus an instruction to focus on the distractor activity during the retention interval, and (3) varied in the salience of prospective targets. Overall, 5-year-olds performed better on the PM task than 4-year-olds. Children also had superior PM when targets were salient compared to non-salient and marginally superior PM when they received an instruction to monitor their intention compared to when they received an instruction to focus on the distractor activity. In addition, positive relations between executive functioning and PM were documented. Taken together, these studies suggest that disrupting or encouraging monitoring has a direct impact on PM performance in certain conditions. The implications of these results for theories that suggest differing roles for controlled processes in PM are discussed.
author2 Moses, Louis
author_facet Moses, Louis
Mahy, Caitlin
Mahy, Caitlin
author Mahy, Caitlin
Mahy, Caitlin
author_sort Mahy, Caitlin
title Investigating the Role of Executive Processes in Young Children's Prospective Memory
title_short Investigating the Role of Executive Processes in Young Children's Prospective Memory
title_full Investigating the Role of Executive Processes in Young Children's Prospective Memory
title_fullStr Investigating the Role of Executive Processes in Young Children's Prospective Memory
title_full_unstemmed Investigating the Role of Executive Processes in Young Children's Prospective Memory
title_sort investigating the role of executive processes in young children's prospective memory
publisher University of Oregon
publishDate 2012
url http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12537
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