Research suggests that deficits in retrieving specific autobiographical memories (ABMs) relate to deficits in social problem solving (SPS). Williams (1996) proposes depressed individuals have deficits in SPS because of difficulty accessing relevant information stored in specific ABMs. This thesis investigated the relationship between SPS and ABM. First, it explored a new version of the Means End Problem Solving task (MEPS; Platt, Spivack, & Bloom, 1975), which incorporates a wider range of social problems. Utilizing the MEPS, it examined multi-dimensional SPS across the mood spectrum. Chapters 3 and 5 indicated that depression is associated with general SPS deficits. However, Chapters 4, 5, and 6 demonstrated that dysphoria in not related to SPS deficits. Next, the thesis examined the relationship between specific ABM retrieval during SPS and SPS performance. Chapter 4 attempted to increase specificity of ABM through an imagery manipulation but was unsuccessful. Furthermore, specificity did not relate to SPS performance in Chapters 4, 5, and 6. Additionally, it explored characteristics beyond specificity that may be important to SPS. Although Chapter 5 reported differences in the memory characteristics between the control, dysphoric, and depressed groups, none of the characteristics in Chapters 5 and 6 related to SPS. Chapter 6 also found that individuals who reported more automatically retrieving memories performed better at SPS. Chapter 6 examined the relationship between intrusive memories and SPS and found that the more individuals reported memory intrusions, avoided and had negative appraisals of the intrusions over the past week, the poorer they were at SPS. This thesis demonstrates that specificity is not a fundamental component of SPS performance. Instead, generating specific memories and SPS may both rely on effectively utilizing the ABM structure. The thesis emphasizes the importance of exploring mode of retrieval in the relationship between ABM and SPS as well as the relationship between intrusive memories and SPS.

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How do we follow instructions? Research has suggested that working memory may play an important role. This thesis explored the involvement of working memory in following instructions using dual tasks known to selectively disrupt the operation of the visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop, and central executive components of the Baddeley and Hitch (1974) model of working memory. Across a series of seven experiments, working memory was found highly involved in encoding instructions. On the basis of these findings it is concluded that the central executive involvement was found to be most substantial, supporting the encoding and maintenance of sequences of actions. The phonological loop appears to play a general supporting role in registry and maintenance of verbal instructions. The contribution of the visuospatial sketchpad appears to be to encode and bind visual and spatial cues in an action, as well as retaining the sequence of actions, possibly via forming a map of locations of to-be-enacted objects. These roles of working memory were similar in following spoken and written instructions. The secondary aim of the thesis was to investigate the action advantage in following instructions, which refers to the superior performance in enacting instruction sequences than simply recalling them verbally. This action advantage was established in both spoken and written instructions in a task paradigm containing rich visual spatial and motor cues, although was absent in a computer-based task involved limited actions upon abstract shapes. As the action advantage was not selectively impaired by the concurrent tasks employed in these experiments, its origins are unlikely to be in working memory. It is therefore concluded that working memory contributes substantial to the following of instructions, but it is not the source of the action advantage present in a rich task environment.

Prospective memory (PM), the ability to remember to carry out future intentions and goals following a delay filled with other unrelated tasks is often compromised following brain injury and other psychological and psychiatric disorders affecting the frontal lobes. It has long been acknowledged that patients with frontal lobe lesions can show relatively intact performance in laboratory settings yet their everyday functioning in multitasking situations requiring PM may be severely impaired (Mesulam 1986). The last 15 years has seen a marked expansion into research and theoretical models of prospective memory and its neural basis with the findings from recent neuroimaging studies suggesting that Brodmann’s area 10 plays an important role in PM (Burgess et al., 2011). The aim of this thesis was to develop paradigms for assessing prospective memory that could be used to measure the behavioural and functional changes in the brain following brief cognitive rehabilitation interventions with the first part of the thesis (Chapters 2-4) investigating the convergent and ecological validity of computerised assessment measures of PM in a group of young and older neurologically healthy individuals, as well as in individuals with acquired brain injury. The second part of the thesis (Chapters 5 and 6) investigated the behavioural and neural changes associated with a brief PM intervention developed from the principles of Goal Management Training (Robertson 1996; Levine et al., 2000; 2012) and Implementation Intentions (Gollwitzer 1993; 1996). Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the assessment and rehabilitation of PM. Chapter 2 assessed age related changes in performance on the computerised PM tests and a modified version of the Hotel Test (Manly et al., 2002) in a group of young and older neurologically healthy individuals. Both the computerised tasks and the modified Hotel Test (mHT) were found to be sensitive to the effects of ageing. Chapter 3 investigated the effects of a brief break filled with an unrelated task on performance on computerised PM tasks. A brief break was found to have a negative effect on performance with the amount of performance decay correlating with self-reported memory functioning. Chapter 4 assessed the convergent and ecological validity of the computerised PM tasks and their sensitivity to brain injury. The tasks were found to have good convergent validity with the mHT and the CAMPROMPT. The informant- and self-ratings of everyday memory and goal management functioning correlated with task performance in the ABI sample. Chapter 5 investigated whether brief intervention aimed at reducing PM lapses would be successful in improving performance on computerised PM task compared with a control training intervention. Chapter 6 investigated the functional changes in brain activation associated with this brief training. Significant behavioural improvements on the computerised PM tasks were seen following brief training with some evidence of transfer of the effect to a novel task. Significant changes in neural activations within Brodmann’s area 10 were seen following brief training in the trained group compared to the control group. The findings have implications for the assessment and rehabilitation of individuals with PM problems and are discussed in relation to cognitive theories of PM.