Kretschmer-Trendowicz A, Schnitzspahn K M, Reuter L, Altgassen M
Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany.
School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.
Psychol Res. 2019 Apr;83(3):514-525. doi: 10.1007/s00426-017-0908-0. Epub 2017 Aug 31.
Research on children's prospective memory (PM) shows an increase of performance across childhood and provides first evidence that encoding strategies such as episodic future thinking (EFT; i.e., engaging in a vivid prospection of oneself performing future tasks) may improve performance. The present study aimed at testing whether the beneficial effects of EFT extend from typical lab-based tasks to more complex tasks with real life demands. Further, it was tested whether children's ability to project themselves into different perspectives (i.e., self-projection) moderates the effects of EFT encoding on PM. Overall, 56 children (mean age: M = 10.73 years) were included in this study who were randomly assigned to either an EFT or control condition. Children participated in a 'sightseeing tour' (ongoing activity) inside the lab with various socially relevant and neutral PM tasks embedded. Results showed significantly higher PM performance in the EFT compared to the control group. There was no difference between neutral and social PM tasks and no interaction between type of PM tasks with encoding condition. Further, self-projection did not moderate the effects of EFT encoding on PM. Results suggest that EFT is an effective strategy to improve children's everyday PM. These beneficial effects seem to occur independent from children's general ability to change perspectives and for different types of PM tasks.
关于儿童前瞻记忆（PM）的研究表明，在整个童年时期，其表现有所提高，并首次证明诸如情景未来思维（EFT；即生动地设想自己执行未来任务）等编码策略可能会提高表现。本研究旨在测试EFT的有益效果是否能从典型的基于实验室的任务扩展到具有现实生活需求的更复杂任务。此外，还测试了儿童将自己投射到不同视角的能力（即自我投射）是否会调节EFT编码对PM的影响。总体而言，本研究纳入了56名儿童（平均年龄：M = 10.73岁），他们被随机分配到EFT组或对照组。儿童在实验室里参加了一次“观光之旅”（持续活动），其中嵌入了各种与社会相关的和中性的PM任务。结果显示，与对照组相比，EFT组的PM表现显著更高。中性和社会性PM任务之间没有差异，PM任务类型与编码条件之间也没有交互作用。此外，自我投射并没有调节EFT编码对PM的影响。结果表明，EFT是提高儿童日常PM的一种有效策略。这些有益效果似乎独立于儿童改变视角的一般能力而出现，并且适用于不同类型的PM任务。
