Abstract/Summary

The primary aim of my research programme was to identify and explore the efficacy of some of the factors (e.g. enactment, imagery) that could potentially enhance prospective memory performance in traumatic brain injury patients and healthy older adults. The beneficial effects of these factors were explored in the Virtual Week task with the expectation that manipulations that improve prospective memory performance on this task will enhance prospective memory performance in everyday life. In Study 1, the Virtual Week prospective memory task was administered to 30 traumatic brain injury participants and 30 demographically matched controls who either enacted or verbally encoded prospective memory tasks. All participants also completed neuropsychological, executive function and quality of life tests. The findings revealed that we are better at remembering future intentions (prospective memory) after miming the intention than after saying it aloud – for both traumatic brain injury patients and healthy matched controls. However, miming only helps when we need to carry out the action when a particular event occurs. In contrast, miming did not improve prospective remembering for time-based tasks. Also, an indirect measure of sustained attention was related to traumatic brain injury patients’ event-based prospective memory performance. In Study 2, the role of sustained attention in prospective memory functioning was explored further. The effect of two types of imagery on prospective memory performance was also examined. The Virtual Week prospective memory task was administered to 30 healthy older-old and 30 younger-old adults who either imagined (via 1st person perspective and 3rd person perspective) or verbally encoded prospective memory tasks. All participants also completed cognitive and executive function tests. The findings revealed that imagining tasks to be performed in future through a 3rd person perspective enhanced prospective memory performance for all participants. This suggests that the use of 3rd person imagery might be a powerful strategy to improve prospective memory. Results further revealed that short-term visuospatial working memory and reaction time plays a role in prospective memory performance for older-old adults but not younger-old adults. Potentially, sustained attention enhances eventbased prospective memory performance in younger-old adults. The implications of these findings in relation to theories and rehabilitation strategies in both traumatic brain injury patients and older adults are discussed.