Penningroth Suzanna L, Scott Walter D
Department of Psychology, Department 3415, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University Avenue, Laramie, WY 82071 USA.
Eur J Ageing. 2013 Feb 16;10(3):211-221. doi: 10.1007/s10433-013-0265-9. eCollection 2013 Sep.
There has been little research on variables that affect importance ratings for real prospective memory tasks (e.g., remembering to take medications). Our primary purpose was to test a claim in the motivational-cognitive model of prospective memory, namely that prospective memory tasks highly related to a person's goals and concerns will be rated as more important. We also tested whether this relationship held in both young and older adults. A secondary purpose was to investigate age-related differences in the perceived importance of prospective memory tasks. Older adults and two younger adult groups completed a questionnaire that assessed current prospective memory tasks, their importance, and whether the tasks were related to participants' goals and concerns. As predicted, participants provided higher importance ratings for prospective memory tasks that were highly relevant to their personal goals or concerns, and this was true for both young and older adults. Task importance ratings did not differ for older adults and young college students; however, young nonstudents rated their prospective memory tasks as less important than the other two groups. In all three groups, females gave higher prospective memory task importance ratings than males. In conclusion, our findings suggest that the importance of a prospective memory task is partly determined by its goal-relatedness. This newly demonstrated link suggests important avenues for future research, including research on the mechanisms through which goals improve prospective memory performance.
对于影响实际前瞻记忆任务（例如，记得服药）重要性评级的变量，相关研究较少。我们的主要目的是检验前瞻记忆动机 - 认知模型中的一个观点，即与个人目标和关切高度相关的前瞻记忆任务会被评为更重要。我们还测试了这种关系在年轻人和老年人中是否都成立。第二个目的是调查前瞻记忆任务感知重要性方面的年龄差异。老年人和两个年轻成人组完成了一份问卷，该问卷评估了当前的前瞻记忆任务、其重要性以及任务是否与参与者的目标和关切相关。正如预测的那样，参与者对与其个人目标或关切高度相关的前瞻记忆任务给出了更高的重要性评级，年轻人和老年人都是如此。老年人和年轻大学生的任务重要性评级没有差异；然而，年轻非学生将他们的前瞻记忆任务评为比其他两组更不重要。在所有三组中，女性给出的前瞻记忆任务重要性评级都高于男性。总之，我们的研究结果表明，前瞻记忆任务的重要性部分由其与目标的相关性决定。这一新证明的联系为未来研究指明了重要方向，包括对目标改善前瞻记忆表现的机制的研究。
