Effects of episodic future thinking and self-projection on children’s prospective memory performance

The present study is the first to investigate the benefits of episodic future thinking (EFT) at encoding on prospective memory (PM) in preschool (age: M = 66.34 months, SD = 3.28)and primary school children (age: M = 88.36 months, SD = 3.12). A second aim was to examine if self-projection influences the possible effects of EFT instructions. PM was assessed using a standard PM paradigm in children with a picture-naming task as the ongoing activity in which the PM task was embedded. Further, two first- and two second-order ToM tasks were administered as indicator of children’s self-projection abilities. Forty-one preschoolers and 39 school-aged children were recruited. Half of the participants in each age group were instructed to use EFT as a strategy to encode the PM task, while the others received standard PM instructions. Results revealed a significant age effect, with school-aged children significantly outperforming preschoolers and a significant effect of encoding condition with overall better performance when receiving EFT instructions compared to the standard encoding condition. Even though the interaction between age group and encoding condition was not significant, planned comparisons revealed first evidence that compared to the younger age group, older children’s PM benefited more from EFT instructions during intention encoding. Moreover, results showed that although self-projection had a significant impact on PM performance, it did not influence the effects of EFT instructions. Overall, results indicate that children can use EFT encoding strategies to improve their PM performance once EFT abilities are sufficiently developed. Further, they provide first evidence that in addition to executive functions, which have already been shown to influence the development of PM across childhood, self-projection seems to be another key mechanism underlying this development

Event-based prospective memory across the lifespan: Do all age groups benefit from salient prospective memory cues?

Item does not contain fulltextThe present study investigated effects of cognitive control demands on prospective memory (PM) performance across the lifespan. Four different age groups (children, adolescents, young adults, old adults) worked on a computer-based picture categorization task as ongoing activity, while PM cue salience was varied within-subjects. Results revealed significant main effects of age group and salience. The children group was outperformed by all other age groups, while those groups’ PM performance did not differ significantly. Except for old adults, all age groups benefited from the presentation of salient PM cues. Further, age group and salience interacted significantly, indicating that the children group benefited most from the presentation of salient PM cues, while surprisingly the oldest group showed better results when PM cues were low-salient. Thus, results suggest that cognitive control demands differentially impact children’s and old adults’ PM and that different mechanisms seem to underlie PM development at both ends of the lifespan.10 p

Aligning software projects with business objectives

Companies increasingly recognize that software and IT play a significant role for their current and future business strategies. Therefore, it is important to align IT/softwarerelated strategies with the business goals across the organization. Currently, little experience exists regarding how to effectively create this missing business-IT link. For this purpose, the GQM +Strategies® approach was developed to support companies in aligning IT/software-related strategies with business goals through measurement. This paper focuses on facilitating the approach for aligning IT/software projects with an organization's higher-level goals. Lessons learned from applying the approach in the context of the Japanese Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA), specifically its Software Engineering Center (SEC), are presented. The transparent documentation of goals and strategies, and the collection of key performance indicators were helpful for effectively aligning the projects with overall organizational goals and strategies as well as for evaluating the degree of alignment and the risk of misalignment

Episodic future thinking improves children’s prospective memory performance in a complex task setting with real life task demands

We would like to thank all families for participating in this study. This research was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG grant SFB 940).Peer reviewedPostprintPostprintPostprin

Episodic future thinking improves children's prospective memory performance in a complex task setting with real life task demands

Research on children's prospective memory (PM) shows an increase of performance across childhood and provides first evidence that encoding strategies such as episodic future thinking (EFT; i.e., engaging in a vivid prospection of oneself performing future tasks) may improve performance. The present study aimed at testing whether the beneficial effects of EFT extend from typical lab-based tasks to more complex tasks with real life demands. Further, it was tested whether children’s ability to project themselves into different perspectives (i.e., self-projection) moderates the effects of EFT encoding on PM. Overall, 56 children (mean age: M = 10.73 years) were included in this study who were randomly assigned to either an EFT or control condition. Children participated in a 'sightseeing tour' (ongoing activity) inside the lab with various socially relevant and neutral PM tasks embedded. Results showed significantly higher PM performance in the EFT compared to the control group. There was no difference between neutral and social PM tasks and no interaction between type of PM tasks with encoding condition. Further, self-projection did not moderate the effects of EFT encoding on PM. Results suggest that EFT is an effective strategy to improve children’s everyday PM. These beneficial effects seem to occur independent from children's general ability to change perspectives and for different types of PM tasks