The effect and mechanisms of implementation intention in improving prospective memory performance in schizophrenia patients

Xing-Jie Chen; Lu-Lu Liu; Ji-Fang Cui; Ming-Yuan Gan; Chun-Qiu Li; David L Neumann; David H K Shum; Ya Wang; Raymond C K Chan

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2016.07.035

The effect and mechanisms of implementation intention in improving prospective memory performance in schizophrenia patients

Psychiatry Res. 2016 Oct 30:244:86-93. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2016.07.035. Epub 2016 Jul 22.

Authors

Xing-Jie Chen¹, Lu-Lu Liu², Ji-Fang Cui³, Ming-Yuan Gan⁴, Chun-Qiu Li⁴, David L Neumann⁵, David H K Shum⁵, Ya Wang⁶, Raymond C K Chan⁷

Affiliations

¹ Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA.
² Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
³ Information Center, National Institute of Education Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁴ Beijing Huilongguan Hospital, Beijing, China.
⁵ Menzies Health Institute Queensland and School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia.
⁶ Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. Electronic address: wangyazsu@gmail.com.
⁷ Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

PMID: 27474857
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2016.07.035

Abstract

People with schizophrenia (SCZ) have been shown to have prospective memory (PM) deficits. PM refers to the ability to remember to perform delayed intentions in the future and plays an important role in everyday independent functioning in SCZ. To date, few studies have investigated methods to improve PM in SCZ. This study aimed to examine whether implementation intention can improve PM performance and to explore its underlying mechanisms. Fifty people with SCZ and 50 demographically matched healthy controls (HC) participated in this study. Participants were randomly assigned to an implementation intention condition or a control instruction condition. Participants were required to make PM responses when PM cue words appeared while they were undertaking an ongoing task with two levels of cognitive load (1-back or 2-back). Results showed that people with SCZ were impaired in PM, and implementation intention improved PM performances for both SCZ and HC. Implementation intention improved PM performance in SCZ in both the low and the high cognitive load conditions without ongoing task cost, suggesting that implementation intention improved PM remembering in an automatic way. These results indicate that implementation intention may be a beneficial technique for improving PM performances in people with SCZ.

Keywords: Implementation intention; Mechanism; Prospective memory; Schizophrenia.

MeSH terms

Adult
Female
Humans
Intention*
Male
Memory Disorders / psychology*
Memory Disorders / therapy
Memory, Episodic*
Mental Recall / physiology
Psychomotor Performance / physiology*
Reaction Time / physiology
Schizophrenia / epidemiology
Schizophrenia / therapy
Schizophrenic Psychology*
Young Adult