A Video-based Procedure for the Assessment of Prospective Memory

Prospective memory, or the everyday activity of remembering to remember, is frequently deficient in persons with brain injuries. However, few clinically useful measures of this ability are available. We report the results of three studies using student participants, conducted to examine the psychometric credentials of a video-based method of assessing prospective remembering. This procedure requires participants to watch a video segment recorded moving through a shopping precinct and to recall preassigned instructions (e.g. 'Buy a Big Mac at McDonald's') in response to cues appearing on the videotape. Study 1 showed that the video procedure is reliable and easier to complete when the video footage is set in a familiar location. Study 2 confirmed that familiarity enhances recall and demonstrated that pre-exposure to the unfamiliar video stimuli could partially attenuate this effect. In Study 3 it was found that performance on the video-based task was correlated with performance on an equivalent real life memory task providing evidence for criterion validity. The findings from these studies demonstrate that clinical and experimental measures of prospective memory with high ecological validity can be constructed based on video recordings of everyday activities.