What Is Iconic Memory?

Prospective memory refers to a party remembering the action to be taken, and it is a kind of memory relative to retrospective memory. Prospective memory is more concerned about when and what to do, and its information content is relatively poor; it is obviously related to our plans or goals for daily activities. "Forward-looking memory is a core part of our daily abilities. Without forward-looking memory, individuals will not be able to implement planned actions unless they repeat speech verbally until the appropriate time or until a situation occurs." (Burgess, Quayle & Firth)

Prospective memory is divided into two types, one is time-based prospective memory, and the other is event-based prospective memory. Time-based prospective memory is the completion of prescribed action memory within a certain time, and event-based prospective memory is the completion of prescribed action memory under appropriate conditions. Based on experiments, 52% of time-based prospective memory and 33% of event-based prospective memory were concluded. So time-based prospective memory is better than event-based prospective memory.

There are three theoretical analyses of prospective memory. One involves top-down processing, one is related to working memory, the influence of the central performer, and one is activation theory: the activation of the target event is linked to the plan of the activity.

Prospective memory and retrospective memory are very different. The most fundamental difference is that the prospective memory task includes two components, one is the prospective component that spontaneously starts the previous intention, and the other is the retrospective component that extracts the intention content. The former does not have retrospective memory. Participants can either forget the look-forward component and remember the retrospective component, or vice versa. Secondly, the storage of the two is different. For the same memory content, if a certain word is encountered, a certain reaction key is pressed. As a prospective memory task, it is at a higher activation level than a retroactive memory task, and it is easier to remember and retrieve. Experimental research also shows that the test scores of the normal subjects are irrelevant or little related. In addition, the peculiarity of prospective memory comes from its closer relationship with people's social interactions, not just personal cognitive problems.

Due to the differences between prospective and retrospective memory, prospective memory is different in research methods from retrospective memory. Earlier research on prospective memory has a strong naturalistic color, which is different from the traditional memory experiment method. Instead, the subjects are required to complete the questionnaire, or write the date and time somewhere in the questionnaire to be returned, so that the subjects can save the memory. Diary of failure, and mailing a postcard or calling the experimenter at a specific time. Further techniques include the task of simulating taking pills, that is, taking the subject back to a small box, and periodically pressing the button on the box every day. The device automatically records time; asks kids to bring skates to school; names of movies to be seen during a film society inspection. None of these methods can strictly control and evaluate the use of memory strategy by subjects, nor can they control that although subjects remember a task to be performed, they have not performed due to various reasons; therefore, they are flawed in methods.

Many experimental studies on prospective memory in the 1970s and 1980s failed to find a satisfactory paradigm. In 1990, Einstein and McDaniel developed a method of prospective memory laboratory research. The specific operation is as follows: at the beginning of the experiment, the subject is told the short-term memory (backtrack memory) task; then the prospective memory task is told, that is, to complete a series of short-term memory If a specific word (target event) is encountered during the task, the response key is pressed; before the short-term memory task is started, the participant is required to complete some interference tasks to prevent the prospective memory task from being stored in working memory and generate certain Degree of forgetting; then perform short-term memory tasks embedded with prescribed targets; finally, evaluate the performance of the prospective memory tasks according to the correct rate of pressing the response key. Subsequent experimental studies mostly adopt this paradigm, except that the form and content of the prospective memory task, the interference task, the target event, and the embedded retrospective memory task are changed according to different experimental purposes. For example, a forward-looking memory task may be simply writing a word or making a mark, or it may complete a certain action; an interference task may use favorite assessment or face recognition, etc .; a target event may be an action, a symbol, or even a specific interval And order; retrospective memory tasks may be reading articles or short-term memory. This paradigm is highly operable and the effects of various variables are well known. It is very suitable for event-based prospective memory tasks, that is, external clues can guide the extraction of previous intention tasks; time-based ) Tasks, such as meeting after half an hour, the extraction process is not guided by external clues and needs to be started on its own, it is more difficult to operate, the scene simulation method may be an effective method. ^[2]

Evidence from cognitive neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience suggests that prospective memory generally involves attentional processes that are primarily involved in the frontal lobe of the brain. In addition, prospective and retrospective memories appear to involve different regions of the brain. However, in our study of Burgess et al. (2000, 2001), it is unclear to what extent prospective memory tasks can be extended to other types of prospective memory tasks. In addition, we need to learn more about the timing of various processes in prospective memory. West, Herndon, and Ross-Munroe (2000) reported preliminary results using EPR technology on this issue. They noticed that a negative wave appeared 300 ms after the key stimulus requiring the subject to respond, and successfully searched for a suitable action to maintain this negative wave to 800-1000 ms after the stimulus appeared. However, the results of these studies need to be further repeated and expanded. ^[1]