Remembering to Remember

A Memory for the Future

“When we talk about memory,” says Basso, “we tend to think about retrieving facts or events from the past. This is called ‘retrospective’ memory. It is a cognitive function that stores information in either long-term or short-term systems. For example, ‘I remember that my mop broke yesterday.’ Prospective memory, on the other hand, is a cognitive function necessary to store plans and recall them at a specific time or when specific cues are present. ‘On the way home, when I pass through town, I must remember to stop to get a new mop.’” In other words, prospective memory is about remembering to remember. Aristotle called it a “memory for the future.” The important social impact of prospective memory piqued Basso’s interest: if a person’s retrospective memory fails, we generally perceive the person’s memory to be at fault; but if their prospective memory fails, the person is seen as unmotivated or ‘flaky.’ “The development of prospective memory is based on the functionality of the frontal lobe, which only develops completely by the age of 12 to 13,” explains Basso. “But every child develops at his or her own pace. If a child doesn’t do their homework, is it because they were unmotivated or is it simply because they forgot because their memory has not developed sufficiently?”

“Hey! Teacher!”

With the collaboration of Milvia Cottini, Basso examined prospective memory and the perception of a child’s social skills via evaluations by the child and his or her teacher.The assessment of 74 school-aged children supported the hypothesis that the children’s marks were a significant predictor of social evaluations provided by the teacher (i.e., tendency towards aggression); the lower the marks, the lower the social skills. And with prospective memory tasks and teacher evaluations, he found something every child and parent should take note of: the lower the prospective memory, the lower the marks. “The study suggests that teachers—as well as other non-specialists—are usually not able to distinguish between cognitive maturation and social skills, meaning that it is likely that prospective memory skills are one of the factors that affect a child’s grades and social behaviour.” It’s not that teachers have to change the way they teach, underlines Basso, but rather they should pay attention to the ability of the child to complete that task and propose different strategies. “If you know a child is weak in the prospective memory process, you must take more care about the way you give the tasks. Otherwise, we might incorrectly assess the child as unmotivated, which creates its own kind of social stigma. It is really important to understand more about cognitive processes and how they can be used to improve our on-the-job performance. ”