When children forget to remember: Effects of reduced working memory availability on prospective memory performance

Cheie, Lavinia; MacLeod, Colin; Miclea, Mircea; Laura Visu‐Petra · 2016 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/s13421-016-0682-z

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Summary

This study investigates the impact of working memory (WM) resource availability on prospective memory (PM) performance in school-age children, testing predictions derived from the Preparatory Attentional and Memory Processes (PAM) theory. The PAM theory posits that successful prospective remembering relies on effortful preparatory processes that consume WM resources; consequently, PM should be impaired when these resources are depleted. While previous research established this link in adults, it remained untested in children, despite the critical developmental need for self-regulation and forward planning during the school-age period. The authors aimed to determine whether children’s PM success depends not only on WM capacity but specifically on the amount of WM resources available to maintain intentions amidst competing demands. The researchers employed a 2 (memory task condition) × 3 (arithmetic difficulty) experimental design with 128 ten-year-old children. Participants performed an ongoing arithmetic addition task that progressively increased in processing demands across low, medium, and high difficulty levels. The high difficulty condition additionally required categorization, further taxing WM. Half of the participants performed only the embedded PM task (PM group), while the other half concurrently performed a WM span task requiring them to recall previous calculation results (PM + WM group). The PM task required children to inhibit the arithmetic response and press a specific key upon detecting the cue word "ball." Trait anxiety levels were measured using the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) to assess individual differences in WM depletion. Propensity score matching ensured groups were balanced for age, gender, and trait anxiety. Results supported the PAM hypothesis, demonstrating that PM performance was significantly compromised by the restriction of WM resources. Linear mixed models revealed significant main effects for all three WM-depleting factors. First, PM accuracy decreased as the difficulty of the ongoing arithmetic task increased, indicating that higher processing demands impaired prospective remembering. Second, participants in the PM + WM group performed significantly worse than those in the PM group, confirming that additional WM span requirements further depleted resources necessary for PM. Third, higher trait anxiety scores were significantly associated with reduced PM accuracy, consistent with the attentional control theory that anxiety consumes WM resources. However, contrary to the initial hypothesis, these WM-depleting factors exerted additive rather than interactive effects, suggesting they may deplete different aspects of WM resource availability. The findings provide compelling evidence that children’s prospective remembering is sensitive to the availability of working memory resources. The study concludes that PM success in children is not merely a function of WM capacity development but depends critically on how many resources can be devoted to maintaining intentions. The additive nature of the impairments suggests that processing demands, concurrent WM loads, and anxiety-related cognitive consumption each impact distinct components of the WM system. These results highlight the importance of considering resource availability in understanding developmental trajectories of self-regulation and may explain links between high trait anxiety and academic underachievement.

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• prospective memory interruptions