Task interruption in prospective memory: a frontal lobe function?

J Cockburn

doi:10.1016/s0010-9452(13)80107-4

Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 7781322

Task interruption in prospective memory: a frontal lobe function?

J Cockburn

View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Prospective memory involves remembering an intention to do something as well as remembering the content of the task. It also shares common features with executive skills that are argued to be mediated by the frontal lobes. This paper describes performance on tests of prospective memory by a subject with bilateral frontal lobe infarcts and good retrospective memory but who displayed impairments of planning, initiation and inhibition of ongoing behaviour. The results lend some support to the suggestion that separate neuroanatomical pathways underly retrospective and prospective memory. They also indicate dissociable features within prospective memory that may reflect differences in utilisation of attentional resources and inhibitory control mechanisms.

Explore related subjects

Attention Cerebral Infarction Female Frontal Lobe Humans Memory Memory Disorders Middle Aged Models, Neurological Neuropsychological Tests Task Performance and Analysis Case Reports Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeX RIS

J Cockburn. 1995. Task interruption in prospective memory: a frontal lobe function?. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0010-9452(13)80107-4

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed1999

Spatial attention affects brain activity in human primary visual cortex.

Functional MRI was used to test whether instructing subjects to attend to one or another location in a visual scene would affect neural activity in human primary visual cortex. Stimuli were moving gratings restricted to a pair of peripheral, circular apertures, positioned to the right and to the left of a central fixation point. Subjects were trained to perform a motion discrimination task, attending (without moving their eyes) at any moment to one of the two stimulus apertures. Functional MRI responses were recorded while subjects were cued to alternate their attention between the two apertures. Primary visual cortex responses in each hemisphere modulated with the alternation of the cue; responses were greater when the subject attended to the stimuli in the contralateral hemifield. The attentional modulation of the brain activity was about 25% of that evoked by alternating the stimulus with a uniform field.

Attention↗

PubMed1999

Change-blindness as a result of 'mudsplashes'.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Attention↗

PubMed1999

Attentional functioning in abstinent cocaine abusers.

The effect of chronic cocaine use on attention is directly relevant to the treatment of cocaine dependence, since attention underlies most other cognitive processes, and thus the ability to profit from cognitively-based interventions. This paper reviews 17 studies examining attention in patients with cocaine abuse or dependence. Findings have been inconsistent, largely due to various methodological difficulties. There has been some suggestion of reduced cognitive speed, while focused and sustained attention have generally been unimpaired. Divided attention has been largely unexplored. Thus, there is insufficient evidence either to accept or reject the hypothesis of attentional dysfunction associated with chronic cocaine use.

Attention↗