The Influence Of Ongoing Task Change On Event-based Prospective Memory In Mild Cognitive Impairment

With the increasing intensification of aging presently, more attention are drawnto Alzheimer’s disease. Mild cognitive impairment comes to the vision of scholarsbecause of it’s high risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Previous studies about mild cognitiveimpairment focus on the executive function, visual spatial, episodic memory,language skills etc. Recent researches indicate that prospective memory is impaired inindividuals with mild cognitive impairment.The present study reviewed the background of mild cognitive impairment andprospective memory at first. We introduced the concept of prospective memory, theconcept of mild cognitive impairment and the history of researches on prospectivememory in mild cognitive impairment. Based on the analysis above, we advancedthree questions that will be focused on in the present study:1) the difference betweenindividuals with mild cognitive impairment and normal aging;2) the influence ofongoing task change on prospective memory in aging people;3) the different impactson individuals with mild cognitive impairment and normal aging by ongoing taskchange. Then, after screening subject with questionnaire and clinical scales, the studyconducted a behavioral experiment using the material selected from preliminaryexperiment. We finally draw conclusions as follows with2(group: mild cognitiveimpairment, normal aging)×3(ongoing task change: non-change, order-change,random-change) between-subjects design:1) distinct difference exist in prospectivememory between individuals with mild cognitive impairment and normal aging, theformer are lower on equal conditions, remarkable impairment appears in individualswith mild cognitive impairment;2) the change of ongoing task will affect theprospective memory performance of aging people, their prospective memoryperformance will decline as the change getting complex;3) the influence of ongoingtask degree on individuals with mild cognitive impairment and normal aging isdifferent, mild cognitive impairment is more sensitive which proves that the deficit of mild cognitive impairment may caused by their impairment of executive function, andsupports the view of strategic process.