Psychologists Find That Acting Is the Key to Remembering Tasks

A study published in Neuropsychology determined that alternative enactment techniques, such as acting, can improve prospective memory, which is especially positive for people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), reports ScienceDaily . The team gauged the prospective memory performance of 96 participants, including persons with MCI aged 64 to 87 years, healthy older adults 62 to 84, and younger adults 18 to 22. This performance was studied prior to the introduction of an encoded enactment technique, which was then compared with performance afterwards. The method involves encouraging subjects to act through the activity they must remember to do. Improvement in prospective memory was seen across all age groups, but it was particularly pronounced in older subjects with MCI. The implication is that encouraging people in this demographic to practice enactment as a way of improving prospective memory could result in them living independently longer.