Developmental Study On Effects Of Implementation Intention To Prospective Memory

Prospective memory, in contrast to retrospective memory, is defined as remembering to carry out an or several intended actions at some designated point in the future. Implementation intention refers to detailed action plans one has made by specific situation cues, it can increase the significance of the target cues and strengthen the association of target cues and intended actions, thereby increase possibilities of performing the intended actions. As a powerful self-regulatory strategy, the effectiveness of implementation intention has confirmed in many realms, but whether it can facilitate the performance of prospective memory, as well as on what conditions it can facilitate the performance of prospective memory, still has inconsistent conclusions.In this study, we used laboratory paradigm, selected primary school students in Grade Four, junior middle school students in Grade Two, senior middle school students in Grade Two as subjects,explored the effects of implementation intention on prospective memory performance of three different age groups, and further explored processing mechanism of prospective memory and influencing mechanism of implementation intention on prospective memory.Experiment 1 tested the effects of implementation intention on prospective memory with focal cues prospective memory tasks. The results showed that age effect of prospective memory was significant, senior middle school students were significantly better than primary school students; junior middle school students were marginal significantly better than primary school students; senior middle school students were better than junior middle school students, but not statistical significant. Instruction effect of prospective memory was marginal significant, further analysis showed that implementation intention instruction group was marginally better than prospective memory group with primary school students; implementation intention instruction group was better than prospective memory group with junior middle school students, but not statistical significant; there was little implementation intention effect with junior middle school students.Experiment 2 studied the influences of implementation intention on prospective memory with nonfocal cues prospective memory tasks. The results showed that age effect of prospective memory was highly significant, senior middle school students and junior middle school students were all highly significantly better than primary school students, senior middle school students were better than junior middle school students, but not statistical significant. Instruction effect of prospective memory was significant, further analysis showed that implementation intention instruction group was better than prospective memory group with primary school students; implementation intention instruction group was better than prospective memory group with junior middle school students, but not statistical significant; there was little implementation intention effect with junior middle school students.Combined experiment 1 and 2, conclusions were drawn: the development trajectory of young adults' prospective memory still rised, senior middle school students were better than junior middle school students, junior middle school students were better than primary school students; focal cues prospective memory performance was significantly better than nonfocal cues prospective memory performance, and compared with nonfocal process, focal process appeared greater age effect; implementation intention could effectively facilitate prospective memory performance of primary school students and junior middle school students, but there was little implementation intention effect with senior middle school students; for the focal process condition, implementation intention could initiate relatively automatic process, but for the nonfocal process condition, facilitation of prospective memory performance was a kind of motivational control, it actually changed people's attentional allocation strategies; based on experiment 1 and 2, the study supported the multiprocess framework by McDaniel and Einstein.