How couples can help each other in developing effective memory

Lead researcher Jennifer Margrett,an assistant professor in human development and family studies,and colleagues looked at 14 married couples from central Iowa — three being younger (average age of 35),five being middle-aged (average age of 52) and the other six being older couples (average age of 73).

All participants were asked to complete a variety of prospective memory tasks by playing the board game “Virtual Week,” which encourages verbal interaction among players about completing real life tasks.

For each virtual “day” in the game,participants were asked to perform 10 different prospective memory tasks — four that regularly occur (i.e. taking medication with breakfast),four that were different each day (i.e. purchasing gasoline for the car),and two being time-check tasks that were not based on the activities of the board game (i.e. check lung capacity at two specified times).

The researchers video-recorded the spouses playing the game to determine whether partners tried to assist each other in completing the task,and the impact that collaboration had on their partner’s memory.

They found that partners attempted to collaborate on prospective memory tasks,reporting evidence of tutoring,monitoring,encoding and sociability among the couples – four of the most frequent types of collaborative behaviors.

The researchers found that spouses do rely on each other as external memory aids. However,the extent to which this strategy is effective depends on how reliable the partner’s memory is,and that reliability changes with age for most people.

The study was presented at the American Psychological Association Conference in Boston,Mass. and has been posted online by the Journal of Psychology.