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.     

The fate of completed intentions

The goal of this research was to determine whether and how people deactivate prospective memory (PM) intentions after they have been completed. One view proposes that PM intentions can be deactivated after completion, such that they no longer come to mind and interfere with current tasks. Another view is that now irrelevant completed PM intentions exhibit persisting activation, and continue to be retrieved. In Experiment 1, participants were given a PM intention embedded within the ongoing task during Phase 1, after which participants were told either that the PM task had been completed or suspended until later. During Phase 2, participants were instructed to perform only the ongoing task and were periodically prompted to report their thoughts. Critically, the PM targets from Phase 1 reappeared in Phase 2. All of our measures, including thoughts reported about the PM task, supported the existence of persisting activation. In Experiment 2, we varied conditions that were expected to mitigate persisting activation. Despite our best attempts to promote deactivation, we found evidence for the persistence of spontaneous retrieval in all groups after intentions were completed. The theoretical and practical implications of this potential dark side to spontaneous retrieval are discussed.     

The role of temporal delay and repeated prospective memory cue exposure on the deactivation of completed intentions

Previous studies have shown that completed prospective memory (PM) intentions entail aftereffects in terms of ongoing-task-performance decrements in trials containing repeated PM cues which previously served as PM cues triggering the intended action. Previous research reported that PM aftereffects decrease over time, thus revealing a specific time course of PM aftereffects. In the present study, we tested two accounts for this pattern, assuming either that the decline of aftereffects is related to the temporal distance to PM task completion or may be a result of the repeated exposure of repeated PM cues in the ongoing task. In three experiments, we manipulated both the temporal distance to PM task completion and the frequency of repeated PM cues and demonstrated that aftereffects of completed intentions declined with repeated exposure of formerly relevant PM cues. In addition, effects of repeated exposure were not only limited to the repetition of specific PM-cue exemplars but also generalized to other semantically related PM cues within the PM-cue category. Together, findings show that decreased aftereffects of completed intentions are not related to the temporal duration of the subsequent test block, but crucially depend on the repeated exposure of the previously relevant PM cues.     

Implementation intentions and imagery: individual and combined effects on prospective memory among young adults

Prospective memory (PM) has been found to benefit from implementation intentions (i.e., “when I see X, I will do Y”). However, to date, it is unclear whether implementation intentions must incorporate imagery in order to produce a positive effect on PM, or whether the verbal statement alone is sufficient. It is also equivocal whether the use of visual imagery alone improves PM, absent an intentional statement. The present study investigated the individual influences of implementation intentions and imagery, as well as their combined effect, on PM. A total of 64 undergraduates were placed into one of four instructional conditions—read-only, implementation intention, imagery, or combined—and were then tested on a laboratory PM task. The results revealed that participants in the implementation intention, imagery, and combined groups completed significantly more PM tasks than did participants in the read-only group, but they did not differ from one another. Combining implementation intentions and imagery, however, did not improve PM performance over either strategy alone. Additionally, the implementation intention and imagery groups outperformed the read-only group on a secondary ongoing digit detection task. The results of this study suggest that implementation intentions do not require imagery to be effective in improving PM, and that imagery alone has positive effects on PM. Finally, the results of the ongoing digit detection task suggest that the use of implementation intentions and imagery might provide for automatic identification and processing of environmental cues.     

Individual differences in intention initiation under demanding conditions: Interactive effects of state vs. action orientation and enactment difficulty

The present research examines individual differences in intention initiation. State- compared to action-oriented persons show an intention superiority effect for the cognitive representation of intentions [Goschke, T., & Kuhl, J. (1993). Representation of intentions: Persisting activation in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 1211–1226], but at the same time have a paradoxical deficit in initiating and carrying them out under demanding conditions. The present two experiments focus on intention initiation. Experiment 1 used a modified event-based paradigm of prospective memory, pre-cuing prospective actions with words varying in association to the target word. State-oriented participants had longer latencies in initiating uncued compared to precued actions under low-positive affect (high listlessness). In Experiment 2, we used a key-pressing task under high vs. low cognitive load (uncompleted vs. completed intention). State-oriented participants under high load had longer latencies when they chose by themselves which of two goals to pursue, compared to an External-Cue condition. Action-oriented participants showed efficient performance in each experiment. The intention-initiation deficit of state-oriented participants was related to higher levels of listlessness (first experiment) or to high load (second experiment) suggesting that motivational factors interact with volitional impairments. These results are interpreted in terms of Personality Systems Interaction theory (Kuhl, 2000).     

The Compensatory Role of Implementation Intentions for Young Adults with Low Working Memory Capacity

Many factors improve prospective memory performance both inside and outside of the laboratory, including the detailed planning of the situational cue and intended action (i.e., implementation intentions). In the current study, we obtained measures of working memory capacity and laboratory event‐based prospective memory performance in college‐aged adults. Half of our participants formed an implementation intention in the prospective memory task. Because of evidence that implementation intentions increase the encoding/retrieval efficiency of the prospective memory, it was predicted that forming an implementation intention would serve as a compensatory strategy for those with low working memory ability. Our results supported this hypothesis in that working memory capacity no longer correlated with prospective memory performance when participants employed an implementation intention encoding strategy. These findings suggest that implementation intentions may be an effective way for individuals with low working memory capacity to improve their performance in an attentionally demanding prospective memory task. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

前瞻记忆意向后效应的年龄差异

前瞻记忆意向后效应会对日常生活产生负面影响,研究发现这种现象在老年人中尤其突出。近些年来,研究者们从内外两方面对影响前瞻记忆意向后效应年龄差异的因素进行了探讨,了解到认知老化所带来的抑制能力的衰退以及短时记忆缺陷是造成其年龄差异的主要原因。未来研究需进一步拓展对认知老化的机制和抑制控制能力的认识。另外,可以采用事件相关电位（Event-Related Potentials, ERPs）和功能性磁共振成像（Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, fMRI）等脑成像技术揭示前瞻记忆意向后效应年龄差异的加工机制及神经机制。     

前瞻记忆意向后效应的年龄差异

前瞻记忆意向后效应会对日常生活产生负面影响,研究发现这种现象在老年人中尤其突出。近些年来,研究者们从内外两方面对影响前瞻记忆意向后效应年龄差异的因素进行了探讨,了解到认知老化所带来的抑制能力的衰退以及短时记忆缺陷是造成其年龄差异的主要原因。未来研究需进一步拓展对认知老化的机制和抑制控制能力的认识。另外,可以采用事件相关电位（Event-Related Potentials, ERPs）和功能性磁共振成像（Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, fMRI）等脑成像技术揭示前瞻记忆意向后效应年龄差异的加工机制及神经机制。     

前瞻记忆意图后效中执行错误的机制

前瞻记忆意图后效是指已完成或取消的意图失活失败对当前认知任务造成的干扰。近期研究采用前瞻记忆任务范式探究意图后效的影响因素及认知机制。自发提取-抑制失败和预备性监控两种认知机制的分歧在于提取旧意图是否依赖注意资源的参与。脑成像研究也证实意图提取存在两条神经通路：自发提取通路和预备性监控提取通路。未来研究应探索兼容有意遗忘失败、旧意图再提取、抑制失败三者的研究范式以及降低执行错误的有效措施。     

Age‐related differences in everyday prospective memory tasks: The role of planning and personal importance

The aim of the present studies was to investigate whether age‐related improvement found in naturalistic but experimenter‐given prospective memory (PM) tasks can be generalized to real‐life intentions. In Study 1, younger, middle‐aged, and older adults generated a list of intended activities for the following week; one week later they marked the tasks that they had performed. The participants were also asked to rate the importance of each listed intention and to describe the circumstances of completion that were already known to them. We found that, compared with younger adults, older adults attributed a higher degree of importance to their intentions and had the circumstances of their completion better planned. However, the age‐related benefit in the PM performance for all listed intentions was not present for the very important and well‐planned tasks. In Study 2 we manipulated whether younger adults engaged or not in the detailed planning of when their intentions could be completed. It was demonstrated that younger adults who had to perform detailed planning completed their intended activities more often than those who did not plan for their intentions. The results support explanations of the age‐related benefit in everyday PM that highlight the role of importance and planning.     

前瞻记忆意向后效应的加工机制:来自眼动的证据

基于重复前瞻记忆目标范式和视觉搜索范式,采用多种类型刺激呈现的眼动测量方式考察前瞻记忆意向后效应的加工机制。研究采用2（条件）×5（刺激类型）的混合实验设计,显著条件下前瞻记忆目标为红色,非显著条件下前瞻记忆目标和其他字母的颜色均为白色,背景为黑色。结果显示,显著和非显著条件下前瞻记忆完成阶段中对原前瞻记忆目标的反应时慢于控制条件,而且前瞻记忆目标在进行中任务目标之后的反应时慢于进行中任务目标之前的刺激类型。另外,非显著条件下,前瞻记忆目标在进行中任务目标之前和之后的眼动数据没有差异;显著条件下的注视点数量多于控制条件,前瞻记忆目标在进行中任务目标之后的注视点数量多于进行中任务目标之前的刺激类型。结果说明,前瞻记忆任务完成以后,在随后的阶段中遇到原前瞻记忆目标时被试会投入认知资源对其进行抑制,支持抑制加工。     

Psychosocial stress enhances time-based prospective memory in healthy young men

Forgetting of intentions (such as to take one's medication) is the most frequent everyday memory failure. No study so far has looked into the possible consequences stress might exert on memory for intentions (i.e., prospective memory). Twenty healthy young male adults were exposed to a psychosocial stress test and a non-stress condition. After a delay of 15 min, a time- and an event-based prospective memory task were administered during the peak of cortisol concentrations. Results show that participants performed significantly better in the time-based memory task after stress in comparison to the non-stress condition. In contrast, there was no stress effect on event-based prospective memory. The results demonstrate that prospective memory might be enhanced when participants are exposed to stress prior to the memory task and that this effect is associated to stress-related glucocorticoid effects.     

Cognitive control processes underlying time-based prospective memory impairment in individuals with high depressive symptomatology

The current study compared time-based prospective memory (PM) for individuals with high depressive symptomatology (HDS) and low depressive symptomatology (LDS). We examined PM accuracy rate, clock-checking frequency, and decrements in ongoing task performance (i.e., costs to ongoing tasks) associated with an embedded time-based PM task. HDS participants demonstrated numerically lower but statistically comparable clock-checking frequency to LDS participants. However, their PM performance was significantly poorer than that of LDS participants. The pattern of observed costs to ongoing tasks and correlational analyses between ongoing task performance and PM accuracy showed that, relative to LDS participants, HDS participants were restricted in their allocation of attentional resources to support PM. We concluded that although HDS and LDS participants externally controlled their time-based PM task performance (i.e., clock-checking) similarly, the HDS participants lacked the cognitive initiative to allocate attentional resources to internally control PM task performance. Such internal control might reflect time-estimation processes, the resources required to maintain the PM task response intention, and/or the ability to coordinate the PM task response with ongoing task demands. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to have examined time-based PM strategies used by HDS individuals beyond clock-checking. The data suggest that interventions that encourage intermittent strategic reviews of PM goals may be beneficial for individuals with high depressive symptomatology.     

The effects of collaboration and punishment on prospective memory performance in a group setting

Remembering to perform a delayed intention is termed prospective memory (PM). Often delayed intentions are shared by more than one person; however, there is a dearth of studies examining PM in social settings. We aimed to investigate whether the potential consequences of one's behavior across diverse group settings influence PM performance in event‐ and time‐based tasks. A total of 207 participants were randomly allocated to either an individual, collaborative, or collaborative plus penalty motivation condition and were tested in a 2‐ or 3‐person setting. For the time‐based PM task, participants responded less timely in the individual motivation condition, whereas there was no difference between the collaborative motivation conditions. No significant effects were found for motivation condition on the event‐based task or for group size on PM performance. Analyses of ongoing task performance revealed that participants' attention allocation policies change depending on how individuals prioritize the ongoing and PM tasks.     

The intention‐superiority effect for naturally occurring activities: The role of intention accessibility in everyday prospective remembering in young and older adults

This study examined age differences in the accessibility of a single pool of naturally occurring intentions both before and after completion. Following Maylor, Darby, and Della Sala (2000), accessibility was measured in terms of the number of activities generated in a 4‐minute activity fluency task. Each participant undertook two such tasks. A prospective task in which they generated activities intended for completion during the following week and a retrospective task, 1 week later, in which they generated activities carried out over the previous week. In a partial replication of Maylor et al.'s findings, young, but not healthy older, adults generated more to‐be‐completed intentions than completed ones, demonstrating an intention‐superiority effect (ISE) for everyday activities. The absence of an ISE for older adults appeared to reflect the reduced accessibility of intentions prior to completion, rather than the impaired inhibition of fulfilled intentions. Moreover, both groups showed greater inaccessibility of completed than intended activities, thus demonstrating an intention‐completion effect for naturally occurring intentions that is preserved in healthy ageing (cf. Marsh, Hicks, & Bink, 1998). Despite showing a reduced accessibility of intended activities, older adults reported having completed a greater proportion of their intentions during the week than young adults. Moreover, there was a correlation between the ability to access intentions and the proportion of intentions completed only for young adults. These observations suggest that older adults' everyday prospective memory performance may be relatively less dependent on intention accessibility and more dependent on other factors. While there was no age difference in the reported use and effectiveness of external retrieval aids, older adults demonstrated a greater level of temporal organization in the production of their intentions in the fluency task. This is consistent with the possibility that older adults may have more structured daily lives and may be able to use information about the sequence of ongoing events to support superior everyday prospective remembering.     

Implementation intentions and prospective memory among older adults: an investigation of the role of frontal lobe function

Prospective memory (PM) among older adults has been shown to be influenced by frontal lobe (FL) function. An implementation intention (e.g., 'if situation X occurs, I will do Y') is a mnemonic strategy that may be particularly beneficial for individuals with low-FL function, as it has been suggested that implementation intentions produce heightened accessibility to environmental cues, and automatic triggering of previously formed intentions. The present study investigated the effectiveness of implementation intentions among 32 older adults characterized as possessing high- or low-FL function. Participants were placed into one of two conditions: Read-Only or Implementation Intentions, before being tested on a laboratory prospective memory task. Results indicated that older adults with high-FL composite scores demonstrated better PM than those with low-FL scores, and that those who made implementation intentions outperformed those who simply read task instructions. Of particular interest is the finding that high-FL participants benefited from implementation intentions, suggesting that implementation intentions may improve PM of all older adults regardless of FL function. Theoretical underpinnings of implementation intentions are discussed in the context of FL function.     

Is working memory necessary for implementation intentions to enhance prospective memory in older adults with cognitive problems?

Implementation intentions are an effective strategy for improving prospective memory in older adults. However, their efficacy has never been assessed in older individuals with cognitive problems (i.e., individuals with subjective memory complaints or objective memory impairments). Furthermore, although most authors consider implementation intentions to depend on automatic processes, some studies have shown the necessity of residual preserved controlled processes for implementation intentions to be efficient. We examined the efficacy of implementation intentions in prospective memory in 45 older participants consulting a memory clinic. Half of the participants were instructed to form an implementation intention, the other half receiving standard instructions. Analyses showed that working memory moderated the efficacy of implementation intentions, which were efficient only in individuals with better working memory. These results corroborate the claim that a minimal level of cognitive resources is required for the technique, although implementation intentions might depend principally on automatic processes.     

Central load reduces peripheral processing: Evidence from incidental memory of background speech

Is there a trade‐off between central (working memory) load and peripheral (perceptual) processing? To address this question, participants were requested to undertake an n‐back task in one of two levels of central/cognitive load (i.e., 1‐back or 2‐back) in the presence of a to‐be‐ignored story presented via headphones. Participants were told to ignore the background story, but they were given a surprise memory test of what had been said in the background story, immediately after the n‐back task was completed. Memory was poorer in the high central load (2‐back) condition in comparison with the low central load (1‐back) condition. Hence, when people compensate for higher central load, by increasing attentional engagement, peripheral processing is constrained. Moreover, participants with high working memory capacity (WMC) – with a superior ability for attentional engagement – remembered less of the background story, but only in the low central load condition. Taken together, peripheral processing – as indexed by incidental memory of background speech – is constrained when task engagement is high.     

Overcoming the planning fallacy through willpower: effects of implementation intentions on actual and predicted task‐completion times

Previous work has shown that people often underestimate their task‐completion times (Buehler, Griffin, & Ross, 1994 ). The present research examined whether this optimistic bias may be reduced through the formation of implementation intentions. In an experimental study, participants were requested to complete an assignment within a specified time period. Half of these participants made implementation intentions about where and when they would complete the assignment. The remaining participants were simply given the goal of completing the assignment. The results showed that furnishing participants' goals with implementation intentions led to (a) more optimistic completion predictions, (b) an even greater increase in actual rates of goal completion, and, consequently, (c) a significant reduction in optimistic bias in completion predictions. Furthermore, the reduction in optimistic bias among implementation–intention participants was found to be mediated by a smaller number of interruptions while working on the assignment. Together, these findings attest to the importance of implementation planning in overcoming unrealistic optimism in task‐completion predictions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Prospective memory and aging: preserved spontaneous retrieval,but impaired deactivation,in older adults

Prospective remembering is partially supported by cue-driven spontaneous retrieval processes. We investigated spontaneous retrieval processes in younger and older adults by presenting prospective memory target cues during a lexical decision task following instructions that the prospective memory task was finished. Spontaneous retrieval was inferred from slowed lexical decision responses to target cues (i.e., intention interference). When the intention was finished, younger adults efficiently deactivated their intention, but the older adults continued to retrieve their intentions. Levels of inhibitory functioning were negatively associated with intention interference in the older adult group, but not in the younger adult group. These results indicate that normal aging might not compromise spontaneous retrieval processes but that the ability to deactivate completed intentions is impaired.