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Scientific article
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English

The effects of task instructor status on prospective memory performance in preschoolers

Published inEuropean journal of developmental psychology, vol. 14, no. 1, p. 102-117
Publication date2017
Abstract

The present study applied a 2 × 2 experimental design to assess prospective memory (PM) development across preschool age and to examine the effect of task instructor status (researcher vs. significant other) on PM performance in 80 preschool children. Participants were required to name pictures (ongoing task [OT]), and to remember to refrain from naming but instead give a different response to certain target cues (PM task). Although the OT was of comparable difficulty for both age groups (as indicated by no performance differences), results still indicated significantly higher PM performance in 5-year-olds than in 3-year-olds, confirming the age-related increase of PM capacities between 3 and 5 years. Furthermore, results showed a performance-enhancing effect of significant others as task instructors on both age-groups. Post-hoc analysis revealed that 3-year-olds instructed by a significant other still performed marginally worse than 5-year-olds instructed by a researcher, underlining the finding that substantial changes of PM capacities take place during early childhood.

Keywords
  • Prospective memory
  • Preschoolers
  • Significant others
  • Role of experimenter
Citation (ISO format)
ZHANG, Xinyuan et al. The effects of task instructor status on prospective memory performance in preschoolers. In: European journal of developmental psychology, 2017, vol. 14, n° 1, p. 102–117. doi: 10.1080/17405629.2016.1165660
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Article (Published version)
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Article (Accepted version)
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Identifiers
ISSN of the journal1740-5610
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