The Influence Of Task Type, Sequence And Reinforcement On Prospective Memory

Prospective memory (PM) is referred to as the ability to remember delayed intention. Most of the previous researches investigated PM by using semantic processing and perception processing materials. This study simulates a week of daily activities, investigating difference of different PM tasks and influence of tasks with punishment. This experiment includes:(ⅰ) when designing experiment, PM tasks every day are divided into regular tasks (do something every day, e.g., go running at8am) and irregular tasks(tasks are different every day), and time-check tasks(take a lung capacity test when the stop clock displayed2min and15s and4min and30s), then compare PM performance;(ⅱ) adding reinforcement (punishment and reward) in the tasks, then investigate the changes PM performance.(ⅲ)investigate differences PM tasks which present in a fixed and a random sequence. The results found:(ⅰ) the regular PM performance is better than the irregular, subjects may be automatic processing when they complete regular PM tasks; for the irregular PM tasks, there have significant differences between tbPM and ebPM;(ⅱ) adding reinforcement improves PM performance which is probably due more to subjects highly evaluate the importance of PM tasks, but there have no significant differences between punishment and rewords;(ⅲ)the performance of PM tasks which present in a fixed sequence is better than those in a random sequence, because the participates produce implicit learning in a fixed sequence, but in the two sequences, time-based PM and event-based PM all have significant differences while.