情節模擬（Episodic Simulation: ES）和前瞻性記憶（Prospective Memory: PM）都涉及與未來有關的思維過程：ES著眼於未來事件的想像，而PM需要在未來實行延遲的意圖。 Spreng和他的同事最近進行的功能磁共振成像研究[Neuropsychologia，113 (March)，22 – 28.]表明，如果事先模擬了延遲意圖的執行，則在未來記得實行該意圖的可能會增加。然而，由於ES使PM增強的潛在機制尚不清楚。具體來說，尚不清楚ES是否參與了詳盡的編碼和深度編碼過程，從而改善了PM的回溯過程，還是ES發揮了除處理級別之外的自身作用。為了解決這個問題，本文報告了兩個行為和一個ERP實驗。實驗1和2都包含兩個階段。在第一階段，參與者參與了深層（語義生成）和淺層（音調生成）編碼任務。在第二階段，參與者參與了PM任務，在此期間，PM線索詞是在第一階段中出現的編碼詞語。兩個實驗的不同之處在於，情景模擬這一認知過程參與了實驗1的深度編碼任務，但沒有參與實驗2的。實驗1的結果重複了Spreng等人的發現(2018): 與淺層編碼任務相比，使用ES進行深層編碼任務後的PM表現更好。但是，在深層編碼任務中未使用ES的情況下，實驗2中未觀察到深層編碼任務相對於淺層編碼任務在PM表現上的優勢。實驗3利用ERP相繼記憶效應，將ES的記憶編碼機制與回溯記憶上的深層和淺層編碼任務進行比較。結果表明，與淺層編碼任務相比，ES不能像深層編碼任務那樣改善回溯性記憶表現。因此，這三個實驗的結果表明，ES本身並沒有必要進行深層次的複雜編碼過程來改善PM的回溯性組成部分。ES 對PM的作用不是依賴於編碼深度的效果，而是在於ES這一模擬過程本身。;Both episodic simulation (ES) and prospective memory (PM) involve future thinking with ES focusing on the imagination of future events and PM requiring the realization of delayed intentions in the future. A recent fMRI study by Spreng and his colleagues [Neuropsychologia, 113 (March), 22 – 28.] demonstrated that the performance of event-based PM was enhanced if the execution of the delayed intention was simulated beforehand. The mechanism underlying the PM enhancement due to ES however was not clear. Specifically, it was not clear whether ES engaged elaborative and deep encoding processes hence improved the retrospective component of the PM, or ES exerted its own effect other than level of processing. To address this issue, two behavioral and one ERP experiments are reported in this thesis. Both Experiments 1 and 2 comprised two phases. In the first phase, participants engaged in a deep (semantic generation) and a shallow (tone generation) encoding task. In the second phase, participants engaged in a PM task during which the PM cues were items that had been presented in the first phase. The critical manipulation was that episodic simulation was involved in the deep encoding task of Experiment 1 but not Experiment 2. The results of Experiment 1 replicated the findings of Spreng et al. (2018) in showing that the PM performance was better following the deep encoding task with ES in comparison to the shallow encoding task. The advantage of the deep encoding task compared to the shallow encoding task on the PM performance was however not observed in Experiment 2 when ES was not engaged during the deep encoding task. Experiment 3 employed the ERP subsequent effect to compare with memory encoding mechanisms of ES with those of deep and shallow encoding task on retrospective memory. The results showed that ES did not improve retrospective memory performance as deep encoding tasks when compared with shallow encoding tasks. The results of the three experiments therefore suggested that ES itself did not necessary engage a deep elaborate encoding process to improve the retrospective component of the prospective memory. The ES exerts its own effect on the PM performance other than the level-of-processing effect.
