Henry Julie D, Terrett Gill, Altgassen Mareike, Raponi-Saunders Sandra, Ballhausen Nicola, Schnitzspahn Katharina M, Rendell Peter G
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
School of Psychology, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne Campus, Fitzroy, VIC 3065, Australia.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2014 Nov;127:110-25. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.01.011. Epub 2014 Mar 26.
Prospective memory (PM) refers to the implementation of delayed intentions, a cognitive ability that plays a critical role in daily life because of its involvement in goal-directed behavior and consequently the development and maintenance of independence. Emerging evidence indicates that PM may be disrupted in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), potentially contributing to the functional difficulties that characterize this group. However, the degree, nature, and specificity of ASD-related impairment remains poorly understood. In the current study, children between 8 and 12 years of age who were diagnosed with ASDs (n=30) were compared with typically developing children (n=30) on a child-appropriate version of the Virtual Week board game. This measure provides an opportunity to investigate the different sorts of PM failures that occur. The ASD group showed significant PM impairment on measures of time-based (but not event-based) prospective remembering. However, only a subtle difference emerged between regular and irregular PM tasks, and group differences were consistent across these tasks. Because regular and irregular tasks differentially load retrospective memory, these data imply that the PM difficulties seen in ASDs may primarily reflect a monitoring deficit and not an encoding and memory storage deficit. PM performance was poorer under conditions of high ongoing task absorption, but the magnitude of this effect did not vary as a function of group. In both groups, time-based (but not event-based) PM difficulties were associated with functional outcomes in daily life, but only an inconsistent association with executive control emerged.
前瞻性记忆（PM）是指延迟意图的执行，这是一种认知能力，由于其参与目标导向行为，进而对独立性的发展和维持起着关键作用，所以在日常生活中扮演着重要角色。新出现的证据表明，自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者的前瞻性记忆可能会受到干扰，这可能是导致该群体出现功能障碍的原因之一。然而，与ASD相关的损害程度、性质和特异性仍知之甚少。在本研究中，我们使用适合儿童的虚拟周棋盘游戏，对30名8至12岁被诊断为ASD的儿童与30名发育正常的儿童进行了比较。该测试为研究各种前瞻性记忆失败提供了机会。ASD组在基于时间（而非基于事件）的前瞻性记忆测试中表现出明显的前瞻性记忆损害。然而，常规和非常规前瞻性记忆任务之间只出现了细微差异，且两组在这些任务中的差异是一致的。由于常规和非常规任务对回溯性记忆的负荷不同，这些数据表明，ASD患者出现的前瞻性记忆困难可能主要反映了一种监控缺陷，而非编码和记忆存储缺陷。在高任务投入状态下，前瞻性记忆表现较差，但这种效应的大小并不因组别而异。在两组中，基于时间（而非基于事件）的前瞻性记忆困难都与日常生活中的功能结果相关，但与执行控制的关联并不一致。
