In one ear and out the other: Verbal reminders do not improve young children’s prospective memory performance on a virtual task

Abstract

Prospective memory (PM), or remembering to carry out future intentions, is an ability with which young children often struggle. Thus, it is crucial to determine how to best support the development of their PM skills. Reminders are often used to support PM, and previous research has found that reminders referencing both the PM cue and intended action can improve children’s and adults’ PM. To date, no studies have investigated the effect of verbal cue and action reminders on preschool children’s PM performance, a gap the current study intended to fill. A total of 88 North American children aged 3 to 6 years completed a PM task virtually. The PM task required children to interrupt a card-sorting task to wave at specific cards (those depicting elephants). Children were randomly assigned to receive one of the following: (a) three cue–action reminders, which referenced the PM cue (the elephants) and the intended action (waving); (b) three cue-only reminders, which referenced only the PM cue; (c) three action-only reminders, which referenced only the intended action; or (d) three irrelevant control reminders. The only significant predictor of PM performance was age, which became nonsignificant when the interaction terms were added in the model. Reminders did not have an effect on children’s PM. We consider how these findings may lend support to theories of PM development and discuss the implications of using verbal reminders to support children’s PM in everyday contexts.