فصلنامه روانشناسی شناختی

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of goal setting on declarative memory performance in tasks with different cognitive loads. 60 female students were selected randomly and divided into short-term goals, long-term goals with high and low cognitive loads and the control groups. For this purpose, the Petersburg sleep quality questionnaire, Goldberg mental health questionnaire, inventory cognitive function, Annette handedness questionnaire, and Stroop software (task  with high cognitive load) and color matching chain (task with low cognitive load) were used. All groups practiced four training sessions in four days based on type of goal setting instructions. The retention test was performed 24 hours after the acquisition phase. Data were analyzed using the factorial repeated measures ANOVA (acquisition phase), two-way analysis of variance, one way analysis of variance and Bonferroni post hoc test (retention test). Results showed significant differences among experimental groups in the acquisition phase (P<0.05). The short term goals group performed better than the other groups in the retention test and task with high cognitive load (stroop task). Also, the short term goals group had better performance than control group in the low cognitive load task (color matching task chain). Furthermore, comparing the groups in tasks with high and low cognitive loads in the retention test showed that the short and long term goals groups in task with high cognitive load performed better than the short and long term goals groups in task with low cognitive load. Thus, the results indicate that goal setting instructions are more effective in task with high cognitive load.