Development of Paradigm for Measuring Prospective Memory Function

미래기억 기능을 측정하기 위한 패러다임의 고안

Prospective memory (PM) is related to remember to carry out a previously intented behaviour. The purpose of this study was to develop a paradigm for measuring PM function to diagnosis in mild cognitive impairment 1 or brain injury in patients 2. among brain injured patients Thirty-eight normal healthy subjects participated in current study. The paradigm was composed of four conditions: a baseline and three intention conditions (expectation, execution 1 and 2). In the expectation condition, subjects were asked to make a new response to intented stimuli during ongoing task, but the intented stimuli never occurred. In the execution 1 (one type of expected stimulus) and 2 (two types of expected stimuli), the intended stimuli did occur in 20% of trials. The reaction time and error rate were calculated in each condition. Repeated measures using ANOVA of subject's mean reaction times (RTs) and mean error rates (ERs) showed main effects of conditions during ongoing task. The comparison of PM tasks in executive condition 1 and 2 also showed significance in RTs and ERs. This paradigm reflects sufficiently the performance of prospective memory function during ongoing task in normal individuals. Thus, we suggest that the paradigm will be helpful to study neural network of PM function using brain imaging techniques and diagnosis of PM dysfunction.