PROSPECTIVE MEMORY DEFICITS IN PORTABLE TELEPHONE USERS

Author

Andrei DUMBRAVĂ*^,1,2

¹ Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iaşi, Romania
² G.I.M. Georgescu Institute of C-V Diseases, Iaşi, Romania

ABSTRACT

The behavioral impact of the intensive and widespread use of portable (mobile) telephones seems not yet to be appropriately explored. In an initial study, the performance on several (event-, time-, and activity-based) prospective memory tasks has been measured in two equivalent groups of 37 users and 31 non-users of the portable phone. The results revealed a significant reduction in all prospective memory performances in heavy users, as compared with never users. Two to five years later, some of the participants “changed sides”: 23 individuals in the original non-users group started to become users, meanwhile nine users “converted” to non-users. Their levels of performance on the prospective memory tasks seem to accompany the change in their habits, with a tendency toward the deficit initially noticed in the contrasting group of mobile users. Findings suggest the possibility that the availability of a memory prosthesis like the portable telephone may drastically prevent people from practicing their prospective memory abilities resulting in its probable reversible learned non-use deficit. The time lag for this potential reversibility needs further examination.

KEYWORDS: prospective memory, mobile phones and cognition, memory deficits.

PAGES:367-372

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