›› 2019, Vol. ›› Issue (6): 1441-1447.

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The Practice Effect of Time-based Prospective Memory and Its personality Difference

  

  • Received:2018-09-02 Revised:2019-05-09 Online:2019-11-20 Published:2019-11-20

时间性前瞻记忆的练习效应及其人格差异

郭云飞1,黄希庭2,林冰心1,薛黎明1,邱俊杰1   

  1. 1. 西南大学
    2. 西南大学心理学部
  • 通讯作者: 黄希庭

Abstract: Prospective memory represents the ability of remembering to carry out an intended action in the future. In a typical prospective memory experiment, participants are required to engage in two tasks: the ongoing task and prospective task. According to the nature of the prospective memory cues, there are two types of prospective memory: time-based prospective memory (TBPM) and event-based prospective memory (EBPM). TBPM requires individuals to do something at a specific time point or time period. For example, go to the teaching building for the professional course at two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon. Compared with retrospective memory, prospective memory has a greater impact on the quality of life, because it is directly related to our life plans. Lots of researches focused on how to improve the performance of prospective memory. Practice is usually simple and effective in improving cognitive performance. Some studies found that the performance of prospective memory could also be improved by practice. We define this phenomenon as the practice effect of prospective memory. Most studies found that the practice effect of EBPM was prevalent in young and elderly groups. However, it is not clear whether the TBPM has the practice effect. If the practice effect exists, why does it happen? Dynamic attending theory (DAT) argues that practice improves the effectiveness of time monitoring, resulting in the improvement of TBPM performance. Whether the DAT could effectively explain the practice effect of TBPM? Type A and B personality have different characteristics of time monitoring and management. Thus, the practice effect of TBPM may also have personality differences. Experiment 1 adopted 2(A-B personality: type A、type B)×2(Groups: control group、experimental group)design. Ongoing task adopted 1-back task, which required participants to compare two adjacent capitals. Prospective memory task was pressing the “1” key every 1 minute. A total of 112 college students (27 type A/control group, 28 type A/experimental group, 28 type B/ control group, 29 type B/ experimental group) participated the experiment after screening of A type of behavior type questionnaire. The results showed that the prospective memory scores of all the experimental groups were higher than those of the control groups. Compared with control groups, the experimental groups had more times of time monitoring in the whole process period and the later stage and smaller of time difference. Experiment 2 adopted the same experiment design and procedure as Experiment 1. The only difference between the two experiments was that the ongoing task of Experiment 2 was 2-back task, which required participants to compare the present letter with the second one in front of it. The results of Experiment 2 were roughly the same as Experiment 1. The results of the two experiments confirmed the existence of the practice effect of TBPM. But we did not find the personality differences in the practice effect of TBPM. The conclusions of the present study are as follows: (1) the practice effect of TBPM does exist. (2) There is no difference between type A and type B in the practice effect of TBPM.

Key words: time-based prospective memory, practice effect, dynamic attending theory, A-B personality type

摘要: 实验1和实验2分别探究在低难度和高难度进行中任务条件下是否存在TBPM的练习效应及其人格差异,结果发现无论在何种情况下,实验组的前瞻记忆成绩均显著高于控制组,说明TBPM的练习效应稳定存在;A-B型人格类型与组别交互作用均不显著,说明A型和B型人格在TBPM的练习效应上没有差异;实验组在总的时间监控次数和后期时间监控次数上均高于控制组,时间差均低于控制组,说明练习通过提高时间监控有效性和总的注意投入量来提高前瞻记忆成绩。

关键词: 时间性前瞻记忆, 练习效应, 动态注意理论, A-B型人格