Abstract:

Prospective memory refers to the ability to remember to perform a delayed intention at an appropriate time or situation in the future, such as remembering to return a book to the library tomorrow morning or to take a daily medication. Over the course of childhood, a key developmental task is to gain independence from parents and caregivers to become increasingly autonomous. Children are not sufficiently capable of completing future intentions independently early on and often need help from their parents and caregivers to complete future intention activities. As they enter school age, children are expected to be able to complete prospective memory tasks independently. If children are unable to complete these tasks, their academic performance may be negatively affected. And as the transition from kindergarten to primary school requires more and more self-management skills from children, it follows that prospective memory is a key factor in children’s development independent of their caregivers. Children’s prospective memory is an important expression of their developing independence, and good prospective memory is beneficial to their future growth and development.

The development of prospective memory follows an inverted U-shape function from childhood to old age, with young and middle-aged adults having peak prospective memory. Executive functions, the conscious control of thought and action, develops rapidly in early childhood. Executive functions capacities are linked to successful prospective memory. Firstly, both are related to making and executing plans, and both take action to achieve goals. Secondly, developmental psychology research suggests that executive functions and prospective memory have similar developmental trajectories. Finally, patients with damage to brain regions associated with executive function also have deficits in prospective memory. Both depend on a similar brain network structure, namely the prefrontal regions. The successful execution of children’s prospective memory relies on executive functions, and the various subcomponents of executive functions (working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility) play different roles in children’s prospective memory processing, depending on their level of development. Among them, working memory plays an important role in the intention encoding and intention retention stages, and its effect on prospective memory is mainly in early childhood. The inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility play a key role in the intention extraction and intention execution stages and the effects of these two subcomponents on children’s prospective memory are mainly in middle and late childhood. Exploring the relationship between children’s prospective memory and execution function in future research needs to improve research methodology, especially by selecting age-appropriate task paradigms and theoretical models for children, by combining different types of prospective memory in the same sample, and by increasing the evidence from longitudinal studies. There is also a need to explore in greater depth the relationship between executive function and different types of PM. In addition to this, future studies need to investigate the processing phases of children’s prospective memory in detail by combining brain imaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging and functional near-infrared spectroscopy.

Key words: children, prospective memory, executive functions

摘要： 前瞻记忆是指在未来某一恰当时间或情境中,记得完成先前计划好的事件或活动的记忆。受认知发展水平限制,执行功能各子成分（工作记忆、抑制控制、认知灵活性）在儿童前瞻记忆加工过程中起不同作用。其中,工作记忆在意向编码和维持阶段发挥重要作用,该成分对前瞻记忆的影响主要在儿童早期。而抑制控制和认知灵活性则在意向提取和执行阶段中起关键作用,这两个子成分对前瞻记忆的影响主要在儿童中后期。未来在考察儿童前瞻记忆与执行功能关系时需改进研究方法,选取适合儿童的任务范式和理论模型,在同一样本中对不同类型前瞻记忆综合探究并增加纵向研究证据。另外,还需深入考察不同类型前瞻记忆与执行功能的关系,并进一步揭示执行功能对儿童前瞻记忆成分及各加工阶段的影响。

关键词: 儿童, 前瞻记忆, 执行功能