Early developmental trends on time- and event-based prospective memory tasks

This study assessed childhood prospective memory, the memory for future intentions such as remembering to hand in homework by: (a) comparing 47 children in three age groups; (b) using both time- (i.e., CyberCruiser)*, and event-based (i.e., a card sorting task) prospective memory tosks; and (c) examining relationships between prospective and retrospective memory, and prospective memory and two tests of executive function (Stroop Colour-Word Interference Test [Stroop] and Tower of London [TOL]. Results indicated improvements with age, albeit not identical patterns of improvement, on both prospective- and retrospective-memory tasks and the TOL Furthermore, the TOL was significantly correlated with both measures of prospective memory. The different patterns of improvement with age on the prospective memory tasks suggest that it is not the type of task per se that matters so much as the complexity of the task. It is recommended that aspects of task demand be investigated further.