Affiliations: Clinica Neurologica, Università Tor Vergata, Rome,
Italy | I.R.C.C.S. Fondazione S. Lucia, Rome, Italy
Note: [] Corresponding author: Giovanni A. Carlesimo, Fondazione IRCCS S.
Lucia, V. Ardeatina, 306, 00179 Rome, Italy. Tel.: +39 06 51501517; Fax: +39 06
51501584; E-mail: memolab@hsantalucia.it
Abstract: Objectives: To assess the sensitivity of patients who suffered a
severe closed-head injury to the manipulation of attentional resources and
encoding instructions during the execution of prospective memory tasks. Material and Methods: A group of patients with chronic sequelae of severe
closed-head injury and a group of matched normal controls were given an
experimental procedure for the assessment of time-based and
event-based prospective memory. Availability of attentional resources at the
time of intention recall and encoding conditions at the time of giving
instructions were varied across experimental sessions. Results: The
simultaneous execution of a concurrent task was more detrimental to accuracy in
the spontaneous recall of the prospective intention in the post-traumatic than
in the normal control group. Moreover, the instruction to encode more
extensively by rehearsing aloud and mentally imaging the actions to be
performed at the time of the study improved recall accuracy more in the
post-traumatic than in the normal control group. Conclusions: Based on
these data, we suggest that a prospective memory deficit in post-traumatic
patients is due, among other things, to reduced availability of attentional
resources and to poor encoding of actions to be performed.
Keywords: Prospective memory, head trauma, attention, encoding
