Why are you late? Investigating the role of time management in time-based prospective memory

The difference of time-based prospective memory between Type A and Type B individuals under different time monitoring conditions

Time-based prospective memory (TBPM) is affected by many factors, which include Type A and Type B personality types. Type A individuals have a strong desire to complete tasks and a strong sense of time-urgency to complete established tasks before the deadline. Type B individuals have fewer time constraints and usually procrastinate until the deadline to complete the task. Compared with Type B individuals, Type A individuals may perform better in TBPM due to their advantages in time cognition and attitude. This study explores the differences in the TBPM ability between Type A individuals and Type B individuals under different time monitoring conditions. In Experiment 1, there was no limit to how many times participants could check the time. The results showed that the performance of TBPM between Type A individuals and Type B individuals was not different. In Experiment 2, participants could only check the time once during each TBPM task. The results showed that, compared to Type B individuals, Type A individuals performed better in TBPM, with higher time monitoring frequency and slower response speed to the ongoing tasks. These findings suggest that the performance of Type A individuals in TBPM has an advantage only under the restricted time monitoring condition. This advantage is then mainly due to the increase in the attention consumption of Type A individuals in both internal and external attention.

Aging and time-based prospective memory in the laboratory: a meta-analysis on age-related differences and possible explanatory factors

In older adults' everyday life, time-based prospective memory (TBPM) is relevant as health-related intentions are often part of daily activities. Nonetheless, it is still unclear which task-related factors can potentially moderate the magnitude of age-related differences, such as duration of the PM target time (the time-window within which an individual must complete a given TBPM task), the frequency of the TBPM tasks, and the criterion chosen to compute PM accuracy. The present meta-analysis aimed to quantify age-related differences in laboratory TBPM tasks, and to investigate how specific task-related factors potentially moderate the magnitude of age effects. The results showed that age effects consistently emerged among the studies, with older adults showing lower TBPM performance and checking the clock less often than younger adults, especially for shorter intervals (e.g., ≤ 4 min). Furthermore, the results indicated that the duration of the PM target time interacted with the frequency of the PM task, suggesting that learning effects may attenuate the magnitude of age differences in TBPM performance. The results are discussed in terms of potential implications about the possible cognitive processes involved in TBPM and aging, as well as in terms of robustness of the TBPM laboratory paradigm in aging research.

The aging mind: A complex challenge for research and practice

Cognitive decline as part of mental ageing is typically assessed with standardized tests; below-average performance in such tests is used as an indicator for pathological cognitive aging. In addition, morphological and functional changes in the brain are used as parameters for age-related pathological decline in cognitive abilities. However, there is no simple link between the trajectories of changes in cognition and morphological or functional changes in the brain. Furthermore, below-average test performance does not necessarily mean a significant impairment in everyday activities. It therefore appears crucial to record individual everyday tasks and their cognitive (and other) requirements in functional terms. This would also allow reliable assessment of the ecological validity of existing and insufficient cognitive skills. Understanding and dealing with the phenomena and consequences of mental aging does of course not only depend on cognition. Motivation and emotions as well personal meaning of life and life satisfaction play an equally important role. This means, however, that cognition represents only one, albeit important, aspect of mental aging. Furthermore, creating and development of proper assessment tools for functional cognition is important. In this contribution we would like to discuss some aspects that we consider relevant for a holistic view of the aging mind and promote a strengthening of a multidisciplinary approach with close cooperation between all basic and applied sciences involved in aging research, a quick translation of the research results into practice, and a close cooperation between all disciplines and professions who advise and support older people.

Prosocial motivation can promote the time-based prospective memory of school-age children

In real life, we are often motivated to plan things to be performed at specific times in the future. Some of these intended actions help other individuals, and thus involve time-based prospective memory (TBPM) under prosocial motivational conditions. Children's social development is very rapid, and they have relatively stable prosocial motivation during school age. Few studies have paid attention to this issue. This study focuses on three aspects of this issue: (1) the impact of prosocial motivation on the TBPM of school-age children, (2) whether there are sex differences in this effect, and, for the first time, (3) the processing mechanism by which prosocial motivation affects TBPM in school-age children in the framework of the motivation cognitive model. A total of 112 elementary school students, aged between 8 and 12, participated in the experiment, using a 2 (group: prosocial motivation, control) × 2 (sex: boy, girl) between-subjects design. The results showed that prosocial motivation can significantly reduce children's time difference of TBPM. However, we found no sex differences in the effect of prosocial motivation on TBPM in the above two indicators. With regard to the processing mechanism, we found that the prosocial motivation group paid more attention to external time information throughout the experiment. However, their internal attention and the effectiveness of attention did not improve. These results partially support the motivation cognitive model. Overall, this study found that prosocial motivation relies mainly on external attention to improve the TBPM performance of school-age children.

Clock monitoring is associated with age-related decline in time-based prospective memory

In laboratory time-based prospective memory tasks, older adults typically perform worse than younger adults do. It has been suggested that less frequent clock checking due to problems with executive functions may be responsible. We aimed to investigate the role of clock checking in older adults’ time-based prospective memory and to clarify whether executive functions would be associated with clock checking and consequently, with time-based prospective memory. We included 62 healthy older adults (62-85 years of age) and applied tasks of time-based prospective memory as well as of executive functions (i.e., inhibition, fluency, and working memory). We used mediation analysis to test whether time-based prospective memory declined with advancing age due to less frequent clock checking. In addition, we tested whether there would be an association between executive functions and clock checking or time-based prospective memory. Time-based prospective memory declined with advancing age due to less frequent clock checking within 30s prior to intention completion. We only found a link between executive functions and clock checking (or time-based prospective memory) when not controlling for age. Our results support the importance of clock checking for time-based prospective memory and add to the current literature that older adults’ prospective memory declines because they are less able to adapt their clock checking. Yet, the reason why older adults are less able to adapt their clock checking still remains open. Our results do not indicate that executive function deficits play a central role.

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.

Comparing costs in time-based and event-based prospective memory

Although much recent research has focused on event-based prospective memory (PM), fewer studies have compared event- and time-based PM. In the current study, two experiments were conducted to directly compare ongoing task costs of focal and non-focal event-based tasks with a time-based task. In the second experiment, an external reminder of the task was present to test whether this reduced the cost of the time-based task. PM accuracy was significantly greater for the focal conditions, as predicted. Response times (RT) were highest in the non-focal tasks, with similar RTs in the focal and time-based tasks. Clock check frequency was significantly related to making a PM response in the time-based task, with clock checks increasing as the 7 min target time approached. While time-based tasks may be more difficult to complete, they do not seem to result in the speed cost to an ongoing task that non-focal PM tasks do.

Age-Related Differences in Intentional Forgetting of Prospective Memory

This study investigated age-related differences in intentional forgetting (IF) of prospective memory (memory for actions to be performed in the future) in young (19-30 years) and late-midlife adults (LMA; 57-75 years). Prospective memory (PM) performance was examined by using the Virtual Week (VW) Task. An IF procedure was embedded into the VW task and the participants were instructed to forget some of the PM tasks that they were to remember and execute later on a virtual day. The study compared performances of the young and the LMA participants in the context of event- or time-based regular and irregular tasks. The results confirmed previous findings in showing that LMA participants exhibited worse PM than younger participants in lab-based tasks. In addition, although PM and IF performances separately have been shown to be affected by cognitive aging, larger age-related differences were not found in PM performance under IF conditions.

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.

When a child dies of heatstroke after a parent or caretaker unknowingly leaves the child in a car: How does it happen and is it a crime?

It is commonly reported that in the course of a drive, a parent or caretaker loses awareness of the presence of a child in the back seat of the car. Upon arriving at the destination, the driver exits the car and unknowingly leaves the child in the car. This incomprehensible lapse of memory exposes forgotten children to hazards, including death from heatstroke. More than 400 children in the past 20 years have suffered from heatstroke after being unknowingly forgotten in cars. How can loving and attentive parents, with no evidence of substance abuse or an organic brain disorder, have a catastrophic lapse of memory that places a child's welfare in jeopardy? This article addresses this question at multiple levels of analysis. First, it is concluded that the loss of awareness of a child in a car is a failure of a type of memory referred to as prospective memory (PM), that is, failure to remember to execute a plan in the future. Second, factors that increase the likelihood that PM will fail are identified. Third, research on the neurobiology of PM and PM-related memory failures are reviewed, including a discussion of how competition between brain structures contributes to a failure of PM. Finally, the issue of whether a failure of PM that results in harm to a child qualifies as a criminal offence is discussed. Overall, this neuropsychological perspective on how catastrophic memory errors occur should be of value to the scientific community, the public and law-enforcement agencies.

Neural substrates of internally-based and externally-cued timing: An activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of fMRI studies

A dynamic interplay exists between Internally-Based (IBT) and Externally-Cued (ECT) time processing. While IBT processes support the self-generation of context-independent temporal representations, ECT mechanisms allow constructing temporal representations primarily derived from the structure of the sensory environment. We performed an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis on 177 fMRI experiments, from 79 articles, to identify brain areas involved in timing; two individual ALEs tested the hypothesis of a neural segregation between IBT and ECT. The general ALE highlighted a network involving supplementary motor area (SMA), intraparietal sulcus, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), insula (INS) and basal ganglia. We found evidence of a partial dissociation between IBT and ECT. IBT relies on a subset of areas also involved in ECT, however ECT tasks activate SMA, right IFG, left precentral gyrus and INS in a significantly stronger way. Present results suggest that ECT involves the detection of environmental temporal regularities and their integration with the output of the IBT processing, to generate a representation of time which reflects the temporal metric of the environment.