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.