The Correlation Between Executive Function And Prospective Memory

In recent years, as a backtracking memory field of complementary memory, the prospective memory has become a hot issue in the research of the psychology of memory. Many scholars pointed out that the level of the ability of prospective memory may be affected by the development level of executive function, but the only two related studies have concluded that the inconsistent conclusions. So, what’s the relationship between prospective memory and executive function? There selected76preschool children from4to6years old and95school-age children including8,10and12years old in this study. Due to the pre-school children can’t grasp the concept of time by mature, this research adopts the classical laboratory research methods to research the pre-school children’s event-based prospective memory and the school-age children’s time-based prospective memory relationships with executive function.The results show that, In the first, there are obvious age effects both preschoolers event prospective memory and three components of executive function, shows that with the increase of age, achievement is gradually rising.In the second, the school age children’s time-based prospective memory and executive function of working memory task have significant age effects, with the increase of age, achievement is gradually rising in details.Third, eliminated the influence of age, there was a significant positive correlation between pre-school children event prospective memory and two components (digit span and the mathematical conversion) of executive functions.Last, for the school-age children, eliminated the influence of age first, the correlation between time-based prospective memory and ongoing task and time monitoring ware significant positive. And, the time prospective memory with the letters-digital task has significant negative correlation.The results of this study not only provide a theoretical support for " Multi-processing Tree Model ", but also analysis the performance of prospective memory for children in real life. In addition, it is instructive and meaningful to custom the prospective memory training plans for children. According to the three comments developing characteristics of children’s executive function, we can arrange appropriate prospective memory tasks for them, to promote their prospective memory abilities. This not only allows children to better adapt to the real life, but also provided a condition for the health of body and mind development. Therefore, this research has a good practical significance both for education workers and children’s parents.