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Objective: To identify the available measures to assess prospective memory (PM) abilities, to describe their content and to quantitatively summarize the effects of various diseases on PM depending on the type of assessment. Method: Three databases (PsycInfo, PsycArticles and PubMed) were searched up to June 2019 to identify the existing PM measures. The identified PM measures were classified according to the type of assessment: test batteries, single-trial procedures, questionnaires and experimental procedures. The characteristics and psychometric properties were presented. PM performance were compared between patients with various diseases and controls depending on the type of assessment. Results: Most of the 16 measures identified evaluated both event- and time-based tasks, were linked to functional outcomes, showed empirical evidences regarding validity and reliability and provided parallel versions. To a slightly lesser extent, few measures provided normative data, translations/adaptation into another language, cutoff scores for diagnostic purposes, qualitative scoring, parallel version and external aids during the test. Compared to healthy controls, patients had significantly poorer performances when PM was assessed with experimental procedures. Heterogeneous data precluded the interpretation of a summary effect for test batteries, single-trial procedures and questionnaires. Planned subgroup analyses indicated consistent PM impairment for patients compared to controls for three test batteries. However, PM complaints did not differ between patients and controls. Conclusions: These results suggest that the use of PM test batteries and experimental procedures are relevant for detecting performance variations in diverse clinical populations. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Résumé : Bien que lesprit critique soit un prérequis à bon nombre de disciplines enseignées à l’université, il est généralement difficile dintéresser les étudiants aux enseignements de méthodologie scientifique. Nous présentons deux méthodes complémentaires pour éviter cet écueil. La première consiste à présenter un faux concept scientifique, le syndrome de Bill Shankly. Les étudiants prennent généralement en note sans questionner, d’autant plus facilement que l’enseignant s’est présenté comme spécialiste mondial et a fait preuve d’autorité. La seconde méthode, utilisée en petits groupes, vise à entraîner les étudiants à vérifier les preuves et les sources. Cette approche qui allie les théories et pratiques de la psychologie sociale, cognitive, de l’apprentissage et des sciences de l’éducation, peut s’utiliser pour d’autres enseignements et disciplines.

Although critical mind is a prerequisite to many university courses, it is hard to have students interested in experimental methods courses. We present two ways to avoid this phenomenon. The first method consists in presenting a fake scientific concept, the Bill Shankly syndrome. Students generally write it without questioning, reinforced with the teacher introduced as a world-class specialist with authority. The second method, in small groups, consists in training students to check evidences and sources.These methods, crossing theories and applications in social and cognitive psychology, learning and teaching sciences, is not for Psychology only and can be developed in different areas.; Bien que l'esprit critique soit un prérequis à bon nombre de disciplines enseignées à l’université, il est généralement difficile d'intéresser les étudiants aux enseignements de méthodologie scientifique. Nous présentons deux méthodes complémentaires pour éviter cet écueil. La première consiste à présenter un faux concept scientifique, le syndrome de Bill Shankly. Les étudiants prennent généralement en note sans questionner, d’autant plus facilement que l’enseignant s’est présenté comme spécialiste mondial et a fait preuve d’autorité. La seconde méthode, utilisée en petits groupes, vise à entraîner les étudiants à vérifier les preuves et les sources.Cette approche qui allie les théories et pratiques de la psychologie sociale, cognitive, de l’apprentissage et des sciences de l’éducation, peut s’utiliser pour d’autres enseignements et disciplines.

Although critical mind is a prerequisite to many university courses, it is hard to have students interested in experimental methods courses. We present two ways to avoid this phenomenon. The first method consists in presenting a fake scientific concept, the Bill Shankly syndrome. Students generally write it without questioning, reinforced with the teacher introduced as a world-class specialist with authority. The second method, in small groups, consists in training students to check evidences and sources.These methods, crossing theories and applications in social and cognitive psychology, learning and teaching sciences, is not for Psychology only and can be developed in different areas.

Background: Regularity effect can affect performance in prospective memory (PM), but little is known on the cognitive processes linked to this effect. Moreover, its impacts with regard to aging remain unknown. To our knowledge, this study is the first to examine regularity effect in PM in a lifespan perspective, with a sample of young, intermediate, and older adults.Objective and design: Our study examined the regularity effect in PM in three groups of participants: 28 young adults (18–30), 16 intermediate adults (40–55), and 25 older adults (65–80). The task, adapted from the Virtual Week, was designed to manipulate the regularity of the various activities of daily life that were to be recalled (regular repeated activities vs. irregular non-repeated activities). We examine the role of several cognitive functions including certain dimensions of executive functions (planning, inhibition, shifting, and binding), short-term memory, and retrospective episodic memory to identify those involved in PM, according to regularity and age.Results: A mixed-design ANOVA showed a main effect of task regularity and an interaction between age and regularity: an age-related difference in PM performances was found for irregular activities (older < young), but not for regular activities. All participants recalled more regular activities than irregular ones with no age effect. It appeared that recalling of regular activities only involved planning for both intermediate and older adults, while recalling of irregular ones were linked to planning, inhibition, short-term memory, binding, and retrospective episodic memory.Conclusion: Taken together, our data suggest that planning capacities seem to play a major role in remembering to perform intended actions with advancing age. Furthermore, the age-PM-paradox may be attenuated when the experimental design is adapted by implementing a familiar context through the use of activities of daily living. The clinical implications of regularity effect are discussed.

International audience; Emotional valence can affect performance in prospective memory (PM), but its impact with regard to aging remains unknown. By using a task inspired from the Virtual Week, our study thus examined the effect of emotional valence on PM in three groups of participants: 28 young adults (18-30), 16 middle aged adults (40-55) and 25 older adults (65-80). The prospective memory task required the recalling of activities bearing different emotional valences (negative, neutral or positive). Our results did not highlight an effect of age on PM. For all three groups, the recalling of negative items was least than neutral or positive ones. In addition, correlations showed that depending on the emotional valence tied to an item, different cognitive processes appeared to be related to PM. These results suggest the importance of taking into account emotional valence in assessing and dealing with PM difficulties in aging.; La valence émotionnelle peut influencer les performances en mémoire prospective (MP), mais son impact au cours du vieillissement reste méconnu. Notre étude a examiné l’effet de ce facteur sur la MP auprès de 28 participants jeunes (18-30), 16 d’âge intermédiaire (40-55) et 25 âgés (65-80) au moyen d’une épreuve inspirée du Virtual Week. La tâche prospective consistait en un rappel d’activités porteuses d’une valence émotionnelle (négative, neutre ou positive). Nos résultats n’ont pas mis en évidence d’effet de l’âge en MP. Pour les trois groupes, le nombre d’items prospectifs de valence négative rappelé était moins élevé que pour les items neutres ou positifs. De plus, les corrélations ont montré que des processus cognitifs différents semblaient liés à la MP selon la valence émotionnelle. Ces résultats suggèrent l’importance de prendre en compte la valence émotionnelle dans l’évaluation et la prise en charge des difficultés de MP au cours du vieillissement.