执行意向影响事件性前瞻记忆的加工机制

本研究旨在探究不同执行意向编码形式对前瞻记忆加工机制的影响是否存在差异。结果显示在低认知负荷下,混合编码效果最好,仅执行意向编码次之,标准编码效果最差,而在高认知负荷下三种编码效果无差异。眼动指标显示在低认知负荷下混合编码的注视点数量最多,总注视时间最长;在混合编码条件下进行中任务和前瞻记忆任务的总注视时间均长于仅执行意向编码和标准编码。结果说明,执行意向编码容易受认知负荷的影响;在低认知负荷下混合编码的被试对任务刺激进行更多的监控和加工,而仅执行意向编码促进前瞻记忆任务的自动化加工。     

On the automatic nature of the task-appropriate processing effect in event-based prospective memory

This research tested competing predictions about the cognitive processes underlying the task-appropriate processing effect in prospective memory. Participants had to press a designated key whenever a word from the semantic category of animals or from the structural category of palindromes occurred in an ongoing lexical decision task. The availability of attentional resources was manipulated by varying the effort to the ongoing task in terms of speed or accuracy. In the task-appropriate semantic prospective memory task, performance was robust against the speed versus accuracy instructions. In the task-inappropriate structural prospective memory task, performance declined under speed instructions that detracted attentional resources. Accordingly, a facilitating effect of task-appropriate processing was observed under speed instructions but not accuracy instructions. The results support the notion that the task-appropriate processing effect is due to a larger contribution of automatic cue detection to prospective memory performance under task-appropriate than task-inappropriate conditions.     

Interference to ongoing activities covaries with the characteristics of an event-based intention

Previous studies of event-based prospective memory have demonstrated that the character of an ongoing task can affect cue detection. By contrast, this study demonstrated that there is a reciprocal relationship insofar as cue-verification and response-retrieval processes interfered with making a response in the ongoing task. The amount of interference was determined by the type of intention, which was manipulated to affect the complexity of verification and retrospective response retrieval. These relationships were true even when the interference caused by cue detection was separated from a more general effect to ongoing-task performance caused by shifts in attentional allocation policies. The results have theoretical implications for models that attempt to specify the cognitive microstructure of event-based prospective memory.     

背景任务刺激间的时距对前瞻干扰效应的影响

前瞻记忆是指形成和保持一个意向直到合适的情境或时间再执行的一种记忆任务。由于在执行背景任务的过程中保持和提取前瞻意向, 使成功执行前瞻记忆任务与加工背景任务之间存在着相互影响。保持前瞻记忆意向对背景任务的反应时和正确率有影响的现象称之为前瞻干扰效应。本研究通过操纵背景任务刺激间时距的两个实验, 考察了背景任务刺激间时距长度对时间性前瞻记忆和事件性前瞻记忆干扰效应量的对比关系的影响。结果发现随着背景任务刺激间时距缩短, 两类前瞻记忆干扰效应量的对比关系发生了变化, 且在背景任务刺激间时距长度不同的情况下执行时间性前瞻记忆任务时, 被试查看时钟的策略也有差异。提示了时间性前瞻记忆任务与事件性前瞻记忆任务认知加工机制上的不同。     

The dynamics of intention retrieval and coordination of action in event-based prospective memory

Event-based prospective memory requires responding to cues in the environment that are associated with a previously established intention. Some researchers believe that intentions reside in memory with an above baseline level of activation, a phenomenon called the intention superiority effect. The authors of this study predicted that intention superiority would be masked by additional cognitive processes associated with successful event-based prospective memory. These additional processes include noticing the cue, retrieving the intention, and coordinating intention execution with the ongoing activity. In 3 experiments, intention superiority was demonstrated by faster latencies to the ongoing activity on failed prospective trials and the existence of the additional processes was demonstrated by slower latencies on successful trials. This study demonstrates the importance of investigating the microstructure of the cognitive components involved with processing and responding to an event-based prospective memory cue.     

编码方式、认知负荷和线索数量对前瞻记忆的影响

采用2（编码方式：执行意向、练习）×2（认知负荷：高、低）×2（线索数量：单一线索、多线索）的混合设计探讨在不同认知负荷和线索数量下两种编码方式对前瞻记忆的影响。结果表明：认知负荷和编码方式交互作用显著,在高认知负荷条件下,练习编码显著好于执行意向编码;线索数量和编码方式交互作用显著,在多线索条件下,练习编码显著好于执行意向编码。说明执行意向编码更容易受认知负荷和线索数量的影响。研究支持了预备注意与记忆加工理论。     

The Impact of Absolute Importance and Processing Overlaps on Prospective Memory Performance

Prospective memory is the ability to remember an intention at an appropriate moment in the future. Prospective memory tasks can be more or less important. Previously, importance was manipulated by emphasizing the importance of the prospective memory task relative to the ongoing task it was embedded in. This resulted in better prospective memory performance but also ongoing task costs. In the present study, we simply instructed one group of participants that the prospective memory task was important (i.e., absolute importance instruction) and compared them with a group with relative importance instructions and a control group. The results showed that absolute importance leads to an increase in prospective memory performance without enhancing ongoing task costs, whereas relative importance resulted in both increased prospective memory performance and ongoing task costs. Thus, prospective memory can be enhanced without ongoing task costs, which is particularly crucial for safety‐work contexts. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of partial-match cues on event-based prospective memory

In event-based prospective memory tasks people form an intention to respond when an environmental cue signals that conditions are appropriate to fulfil an intended activity. In the ongoing activity the authors embedded partial-match cues that only partially, but not completely, satisfied the conditions required to make a prospective response. The consequence of encountering these partial-match cues was to increase responses to appropriate prospective memory cues encountered later. This outcome occurred both with semantic and orthographic cues, but only the former led to longer processing latencies of the partial-match cues. This asymmetry suggests that partial-match cues may not need to be processed consciously in order to benefit event-based prospective memory. A parametric manipulation of the number of partial-match cues resulted in numerically but not statistically better prospective memory. Consequently, partial-match cues may function as overt reminders of the intention to respond or they may serve to engage participants in self-initiated remindings of the intention.     

Comparing time-based and event-based prospective memory over short delays

The current study compared monitoring in time- and event-based prospective memory (PM). Time- and event-based non-focal task instructions were given after a baseline block of a lexical decision ongoing task. Delay between instruction and presentation of PM cue/time was manipulated between-subjects to examine monitoring across short delays (1–6?min). Longer delays decreased performance in the event-based task, but not in the time-based task. This accuracy decline was accompanied by a decline in monitoring (as measured by PM cost to the ongoing task in the trials immediately before the PM cue was presented) between the 1 and 3?min delays. Monitoring was only evident for the time-based task at the 6?min delay as measured by PM cost to the ongoing task. Clock checks were also not affected by delay, but did increase in frequency as the response time neared. These results suggest that delay from the time of intention formation decreases both accuracy and monitoring in event-based tasks, but does not decrease accuracy or monitoring in time-based tasks.     

The influence of partial‐match cues on event‐based prospective memory

In event‐based prospective memory tasks people form an intention to respond when an environmental cue signals that conditions are appropriate to fulfil an intended activity. In the ongoing activity the authors embedded partial‐match cues that only partially, but not completely, satisfied the conditions required to make a prospective response. The consequence of encountering these partial‐match cues was to increase responses to appropriate prospective memory cues encountered later. This outcome occurred both with semantic and orthographic cues, but only the former led to longer processing latencies of the partial‐match cues. This asymmetry suggests that partial‐match cues may not need to be processed consciously in order to benefit event‐based prospective memory. A parametric manipulation of the number of partial‐match cues resulted in numerically but not statistically better prospective memory. Consequently, partial‐match cues may function as overt reminders of the intention to respond or they may serve to engage participants in self‐initiated remindings of the intention.     

前瞻记忆后效的加工机制：对自发提取观点和抑制观点的检验

摘 要 实验1探究前瞻记忆后效的产生是否消耗认知资源,实验2进一步探究前瞻记忆后效产生过程中消耗的认知资源的去向。实验1结果显示在完成阶段,相比于基线条件,其它四种实验条件的进行中任务反应速度均较慢,实验2结果显示无论线索是否显著,前瞻记忆后效均会随着认知负荷的提高而提高。结果表明前瞻记忆后效产生过程中会消耗认知资源对原意向进行抑制。本研究支持了抑制的观点。     

Enhanced recognition of words previously presented in a task with nonfocal prospective memory requirements

Remembering to perform deferred actions when events are encountered in the future is referred to as event-based prospective memory. Individuals can be slower to respond to ongoing tasks when they have prospective memory task requirements. These costs are interpreted as evidence for cognitive control processes allocated to the prospective memory task, but we know little about these processes. In the present article, the recognition of nontargets previously presented in an ongoing task with prospective memory task requirements provided evidence for the differential processing of individual ongoing task items. Participants performed a lexical decision task, where some participants were required to make an alternative prospective memory response either to a specific word (focal) or to exemplars of a category (nonfocal). Participants were slower to respond to the ongoing task in the nonfocal conditions than in the control condition (costs), regardless of whether or not prospective memory task importance was emphasized. Participants were also slower to respond to the ongoing task in the focal conditions than in the control condition, but only when prospective memory task importance was emphasized. This task was followed by a surprise recognition memory test in which nontarget words from the lexical decision task were intermixed with new words. Focal conditions, but not nonfocal conditions, showed better discrimination on the recognition task, as compared with the control condition. Participants in nonfocal conditions mapped the semantic features of the ongoing task letter strings onto the semantic features of their prospective memory category, and this elaboration in the processing of individual nontargets increased incidental learning and produced the recognition benefit.     

Age-related effects in prospective memory are modulated by ongoing task complexity and relation to target cue

Two experiments examined the puzzling variation in the age-related patterns for event-based prospective memory tasks. Both experiments involved a famous faces ongoing task with a feature of the famous face as the target for the prospective memory task. In Experiment 1, a substantial age deficit was found on the prospective memory task when the cue was nonfocal (wearing glasses) to the ongoing task, replicating previous research, but this deficit was significantly reduced with a focal cue (first name John). In Experiment 2, the prospective memory cue (wearing glasses) was held constant and the demands of the ongoing task of naming faces were varied. The substantial age differences found with a nonfocal cue were eliminated when the ongoing task was made less challenging. The findings help reconcile the divergent age-related findings reported in the literature.     

Prior task experience and comparable stimulus exposure nullify focal and nonfocal prospective memory retrieval differences

We explored the nature of focal versus nonfocal event-based prospective memory retrieval. In the context of a lexical decision task, people received an intention to respond to a single word (focal) in one condition and to a category label (nonfocal) for the other condition. Participants experienced both conditions, and their order was manipulated. The focal instruction condition was a single word presented multiple times. In Experiment 1, the stimuli in the nonfocal condition were different exemplars from a category, each presented once. In the nonfocal condition retrieval was poorer and reaction times were slower during the ongoing task as compared to the focal condition, replicating prior findings. In Experiment 2, the stimulus in the nonfocal condition was a single category exemplar repeated multiple times. When this single-exemplar nonfocal condition followed in time the single-item focal condition, focal versus nonfocal performance was virtually indistinguishable. These results demonstrate that people can modify their stimulus processing and expectations in event-based prospective memory tasks based on experience with the nature of prospective cues and with the ongoing task.     

The failure of deactivating intentions: aftereffects of completed intentions in the repeated prospective memory cue paradigm

We used a newly developed experimental paradigm to investigate aftereffects of completed intentions on subsequent performance that required the maintenance and execution of new intentions. Participants performed an ongoing number categorization task and an additional prospective memory (PM) task, which required them to respond to PM cues that differed from standard stimuli in 1 particular visual feature. Although the feature defining the to-be-acted-upon PM cue changed in each block, the irrelevant PM cue of the previous PM task block was occasionally repeated in the subsequent block. In 4 experiments we found that performance in the ongoing task was substantially slowed for repeated PM cue trials compared to oddball trials, which also differed in a visual feature from standard stimuli but never served as PM cues. This aftereffect decreased as a function of delay after intention completion. These findings indicate that intentions can exhibit persisting activation even after they have been completed and may interfere with the execution of the new relevant task. Possible mechanisms and boundary conditions of this intention deactivation failure are discussed.     

Disruptions of preparatory attention contribute to failures of prospective memory

In two experiments, we examine the efficacy of preparatory attentional processes and intention superiority as explanations of the finding that response time (RT) for prospective memory (PM) cue misses is often faster than that for ongoing activity trials or PM cue hits. RT was faster for prospective misses than for ongoing activity trials, demonstrating an intention superiority effect. RT was also faster for ongoing activity trials preceding prospective misses than for those preceding prospective hits. We interpret this finding as reflecting variation in the efficiency of preparatory attentional processes during task performance, leading to failures of PM when preparatory attentional processes are suboptimal.     

Adult age differences in event-based prospective memory: a meta-analysis on the role of focal versus nonfocal cues

Studies of age differences in event-based prospective memory indicate wide variation in the magnitude of age effects. One explanation derived from the multiprocess framework proposes that age differences depend on whether the cue to carry out a prospective intention is focal to ongoing task processing. A meta-analysis of 117 effect sizes from 4,709 participants provided evidence for this view, as age effects were greater when the prospective cue to the ongoing task was nonfocal compared with when it was focal. However, the results only support a weaker but not a stronger prediction of the multiprocess framework, as age impairments were reliably above zero for both types of retrieval cues.     

Age-Related Effects in Prospective Memory are Modulated by Ongoing Task Complexity and Relation to Target Cue

ABSTRACT

Two experiments examined the puzzling variation in the age-related patterns for event-based prospective memory tasks. Both experiments involved a famous faces ongoing task with a feature of the famous face as the target for the prospective memory task. In Experiment 1, a substantial age deficit was found on the prospective memory task when the cue was nonfocal (wearing glasses) to the ongoing task, replicating previous research, but this deficit was significantly reduced with a focal cue (first name John). In Experiment 2, the prospective memory cue (wearing glasses) was held constant and the demands of the ongoing task of naming faces were varied. The substantial age differences found with a nonfocal cue were eliminated when the ongoing task was made less challenging. The findings help reconcile the divergent age-related findings reported in the literature.     

Prospective memory: Effects of divided attention on spontaneous retrieval

We examined the effects of divided attention on the spontaneous retrieval of a prospective memory intention. Participants performed an ongoing lexical decision task with an embedded prospective memory demand, and also performed a divided-attention task during some segments of lexical decision trials. In all experiments, monitoring was highly discouraged, and we observed no evidence that participants engaged monitoring processes. In Experiment 1, performing a moderately demanding divided-attention task (a digit detection task) did not affect prospective memory performance. In Experiment 2, performing a more challenging divided-attention task (random number generation) impaired prospective memory. Experiment 3 showed that this impairment was eliminated when the prospective memory cue was perceptually salient. Taken together, the results indicate that spontaneous retrieval is not automatic and that challenging divided-attention tasks interfere with spontaneous retrieval and not with the execution of a retrieved intention.     

A diffusion model analysis of task interference effects in prospective memory

Holding an intention often interferes with other ongoing activities, indicating that resource-demanding processes are involved in maintaining the intention and noticing the appropriate event to fulfill it. Little is known, however, about the nature of the processes underlying this task interference effect. The goal of the present research was to decompose the processes contributing to the task interference effect by applying the diffusion model (Ratcliff, Psychological Review 85:59–108, 1978) to an event-based prospective memory task. In the first experiment, we validated the interpretation of the response criterion parameter (a) of the diffusion model as reflecting strategies to cope with the anticipated demands of a prospective memory task in the context of the ongoing task. The second experiment served to investigate which underlying processes contribute to the task interference often found with prospective memory tasks. Diffusion model analyses revealed that the task interference effect was due to (1) less efficient processing in the more demanding than in the less demanding prospective memory task and (2) a more conservative response criterion. We suggest that the anticipated demands and the additional processing demands of the prospective memory task jointly contribute to the task interference effect.