THE UNIVERSITY OF READING The Development of Memory for Actions Jamie Drew Mackay A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Psychology Harry Pitt Building University of Reading Earley Gate Reading RG6 6AL June 2005 2 “The suggested intention slumbers on in the person concerned until the time for its execution approaches. Then it awakes and impels him to perform the action.” Sigmund Freud (1991) Psychopathology of Everyday Life 3 Declaration of Original Authorship ‘I confirm that this is my own work and the use of all material from other sources has been properly and fully acknowledged.’ Signature. 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although perhaps this thesis has been a long time coming, I could not have reached this point without some help. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge this help (in no particular order!). To Judi and Jayne, I would like to thank you for your time, energy and enthusiasm. From an academic perspective, you were my motivation and drive, full to the brim with advice and encouragement. To Paul Heaton for all the programming and the odd chat about web technologies! To Mum and Dad: Thank you for your love and emotional support. Oh and the odd rent cheque! I might not say it often enough, but I do love you both very much. To Lou, although a recent addition to my life, you have become a significant addition. You have given so much more meaning to my life. Thank you for your love, cuddles and text messages of support! I would also like to acknowledge all of my friends: Those in Reading, those who have since moved away from Reading and those further a field. Thank you all for your encouragement and the odd, “Have you finished yet?”! To all the staff and children from Katesgrove Primary, Loddon Junior and Whitley Park Junior Schools: Without your help I certainly would not be where I am today! Also a small thank you to Cadbury’s: Chocolate is not just a woman’s best friend; at times it can also be a man’s! Thank you to you all. Remember, in a world that is getting smaller with daily advances in communication; remember that some intentions are more important than others… 5 ABSTRACT Adult studies have revealed superior retention for action words and phrases that are performed at encoding versus verbally encoded: the Subject-Performed-Task or SPT effect (e.g., Cohen 1981). Other studies demonstrate that information related to to-be- performed actions is more accessible from memory than other types of information: the Intention Superiority Effect or ISE (e.g. Goschke & Kuhl 1993; Marsh, Hicks & Bink 1998). Recent research suggests some degree of similarity between the processes underlying these effects (Freeman & Ellis 2003b). Experiments 1-3 explore this proposal by examining the developmental trajectory of these phenomena across young adults, 9- and 11-year-old participants. Interestingly while the SPT effect was observed in all age groups, the ISE was only present in the young adults, indicating some differences between the processing underlying these phenomena. Experiments 4-6 focused on another aspect of memory for actions, Prospective Memory or memory for delayed intentions. Related research includes an investigation into the effects of encoding modality on children’s prospective memory by Passolunghi, Brandimonte and Cornoldi (1995) who found that younger (7-8 years) children benefited from visual encoding of a prospective memory task instruction while older children (10- 11 years) benefited from motoric encoding. Experiments 4-5 assigned children from different age groups to one of three encoding conditions (visual, verbal, motoric) and presented prospective instructions for target items. Experiment 4 revealed no encoding modality benefits between 7-, 9- and 11-year- olds, although there was a developmental trend, particularly between the 7- and 11-year- olds. Experiment 5 failed to reveal any age-related improvement between 9- and 11- year-olds. Experiment 6 examined whether prospective remembering in Experiment 5 was related to executive functioning and identified predictors following motoric and visual encoding. The overall findings are discussed with reference to the deployment of attentional resources and to current theories of the development of executive functioning. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION……………………………………………………………………. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………… 4 ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………................. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………….. 6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1……………………………….. 10 1.1 STRATEGIC VS. AUTOMATIC PROCESSING 10 1.1.1 CONTROLLED PROCESSES 11 1.1.1.1 DIVIDED ATTENTION 11 1.1.2 AUTOMATIC PROCESSES 13 1.1.2.1 AUTOMATIC AND CONTROLLED ENCODING PROCESSES 16 1.1.2.2 AUTOMATIC AND CONTROLLED PROCESSES AT TEST 18 1.1.3 SUMMARY: CONTROLLED VERSUS AUTOMATIC PROCESSES 19 1.2 THE SUBJECT-PERFORMED TASK 20 1.2.1 COHEN’S THEORY: ENACTMENT BASED ON STRATEGY-FREE ENCODING 21 1.2.1.1 EVALUATION OF COHEN’S THEORY 27 1.2.2 BÄCKMAN AND NILSSON’S THEORY: MULTIMODAL ENCODING 28 1.2.2.1 EVALUATION OF BÄCKMAN ET AL’S THEORY 31 1.2.3 ENGELKAMP AND ZIMMER’S THEORY: ENACTMENT BASED ON MOTOR 34 PROCESSES 1.2.3.1 EVALUATION OF ENGELKAMP AND ZIMMER’S THEORY 37 1.2.4 FOLEY AND RATNER’S THEORY: THE ACTIVITY MEMORY 38 FRAMEWORK 1.2.5 THEORIES OF THE ENACTMENT EFFECT: A COMPARISON 41 1.3 THE INTENTION-SUPERIORITY EFFECT 43 1.4 CHILDREN’S MEMORY FOR ACTIONS 50 1.4.1 IS THERE A LINK BETWEEN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUBJECT- 55 PERFORMED TASK AND INTENTION SUPERIORITY EFFECTS IN NINE- AND ELEVEN-YEAR OLD CHILDREN? CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2……………………………….. 57 2.1 EXECUTIVE FUNCTION 57 2.1.1 THEORIES AND COMPONENTS OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTION 57 2.1.2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FRONTAL LOBE (EXECUTIVE) FUNCTIONING 59 2.1.3 TESTS OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTION FOR CHILDREN: A GUIDE 62 2.1.3.1 THE WISCONSIN CARD SORT TEST (WCST) 63 2.1.3.2 THE TOWER OF LONDON / HANOI (TOL / TOH) 64 2.1.3.3 THE STROOP 66 2.2 THE ISE AND THE SPT 71 2.3 THE ISE AND PROSPECTIVE MEMORY 75 2.3.1 PROSPECTIVE MEMORY OR THE REALISATION OF DELAYED INTENTIONS 75 2.3.1.1 DEFINITION AND FRAMEWORKS 76 2.4 AGE EFFECTS ON PROSPECTIVE MEMORY PERFORMANCE 88 2.4.1 THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROSPECTIVE MEMORY 92 7 2.5 FURTHER RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND PREDICTIONS 101 2.5.1 WHAT EFFECT DOES ENCODING MODALITY HAVE ON PROSPECTIVE MEMORY 101 PERFORMANCE IN SEVEN-, NINE- AND ELEVEN-YEAR-OLDS? 2.5.2 TO WHAT EXTENT DO ATTENTIONAL MEASURES SUPPORT PROSPECTIVE 102 MEMORY PERFORMANCE IN SEVEN-, NINE- AND ELEVEN-YEAR-OLDS? CHAPTER 3: THE SPT AND ISE EFFECTS IN CHILDREN…………… 104 3.1 INTRODUCTION 104 3.2 EXPERIMENT 1 113 3.2.1 METHOD 115 3.2.1.1 PARTICIPANTS 115 3.2.1.2 MATERIALS 115 3.2.1.3 DESIGN 117 3.2.1.4 PROCEDURE 117 3.2.2 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 121 3.2.2.1 SPT 122 3.2.2.2 ISE 124 3.2.2.3 TEST BATTERY RESULTS 127 3.3 EXPERIMENT 2 134 3.3.1 INTRODUCTION 134 3.3.2 METHOD 137 3.3.2.1 PARTICIPANTS 137 3.3.2.2 MATERIALS 137 3.3.2.3 DESIGN 138 3.3.2.4 PROCEDURE 138 3.3.3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 139 3.3.3.1 SPT 140 3.3.3.2 ISE 142 3.3.3.3 TEST BATTERY RESULTS 144 3.4 EXPERIMENT 3 (11-YEAR-OLDS) 151 3.4.1 INTRODUCTION 151 3.4.2 METHOD 152 3.4.2.1 PARTICIPANTS 152 3.4.2.2 MATERIALS 152 3.4.2.3 DESIGN 153 3.4.2.4 PROCEDURE 153 3.4.3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 155 3.4.3.1 SPT 156 3.4.3.2 ISE 158 3.4.3.3 TEST BATTERY RESULTS 161 3.5 GENERAL DISCUSSION 168 3.5.1 THE EFFECT OF ENACTING MATERIAL AT ENCODING 168 3.5.1.1 RECOGNITION ACCURACY AND RECALL 168 3.5.1.2 RECOGNITION LATENCY 169 3.5.2 INTENDED ENACTMENT EFFECTS 169 3.5.2.1 RECOGNITION LATENCY 169 3.5.2.2 RECOGNITION ACCURACY AND RECALL 170 3.5.3 THE INFLUENCE OF VERBAL INTELLIGENCE / COMPREHENSION AND 170 INHIBITION ON ISE AND SPT EFFECTS 8 3.5.3.1 VERBAL INTELLIGENCE / COMPREHENSION 171 3.5.3.2 INHIBITION 171 3.5.4 THE INFLUENCE OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS ON THE INTENTION-SUPERIORITY 172 EFFECT IN 11-YEAR-OLDS 3.5.5 1.1.1 PROCEDURAL AND THEORETICAL ISSUES RELATING TO THE 172 DEVELOPMENT OF MEMORY FOR ACTIONS IN 9- AND 11-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN CHAPTER 4: ENCODING MODALITY, PROSPECTIVE MEMORY AND 175 SUBJECT-PERFORMED TASKS IN CHILDREN……………………… 4.1 INTRODUCTION 175 4.2 EXPERIMENT 4 185 4.2.1 METHOD 185 4.2.1.1 PARTICIPANTS 185 4.2.1.2 MATERIALS 185 4.2.1.3 DESIGN 186 4.2.1.4 PROCEDURE 187 4.2.2 RESULTS 190 4.2.2.1 PM TASK RESULTS 190 4.2.2.2 SPT RESULTS 195 4.2.2.3 TEST BATTERY RESULTS 198 4.2.3 DISCUSSION 204 4.2.3.1 MEMORY FOR DELAYED INTENTIONS IN CHILDREN 204 4.2.3.2 THE EFFECT OF ENACTING MATERIAL AT ENCODING AND THE 207 INFLUENCE OF VERBAL COMPREHENSION 4.2.3.3 SUMMARY 210 CHAPTER 5: THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROSPECTIVE MEMORY IN 9- 212 AND 11-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN……………………………………….. 5.1 INTRODUCTION 212 5.2 EXPERIMENT 5 METHOD 215 5.2.1 METHOD 215 5.2.1.1 PARTICIPANTS 215 5.2.1.2 MATERIALS 215 5.2.1.3 DESIGN 216 5.2.1.4 PROCEDURE 217 5.2.2 RESULTS 220 5.2.2.1 PROSPECTIVE MEMORY TASK 220 5.2.2.2 SPT RESULTS 223 5.2.2.3 TEST BATTERY RESULTS 226 5.2.3 DISCUSSION 230 5.2.3.1 MEMORY FOR DELAYED INTENTIONS IN CHILDREN 231 5.2.3.2 THE EFFECT OF ENACTING MATERIAL AT ENCODING AND THE 233 INFLUENCE OF VERBAL COMPREHENSION 9 CHAPTER 6: THE INFLUENCE OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING ON 235 MEMORY FOR ACTIONS IN CHILDREN……………………………….