Melissa J. Guynn

Aging and prospective memory: Examining the influences of self-initiated retrieval processes.

Past research has frequently failed to find age differences in prospective memory. This article tested the possibility that age differences would be more likely to emerge on a prospective memory task that was high in self-initiated retrieval. In the 1st experiment, participants were asked to perform an action every 10 min (a time-based task presumed to be high in self-initiated retrieval); in the 2nd experiment, participants were asked to perform an action whenever a particular word was presented (an event-based task presumed to be relatively low in self-initiated retrieval). Age differences were found with the time-based task but not with the event-based task. This pattern of age differences was again found in a 3rd experiment in which a new experimental procedure was used and the nature of the prospective memory task was directly varied. Generally, the results suggest that self-initiated retrieval processes are an important component of age-related differences across both retrospective and prospective memory tasks.

Age-related deficits in prospective memory: the influence of task complexity.

Younger and older subjects were asked to perform an action whenever target words occurred during a short-term memory task. The difficulty of this prospective memory task was manipulated by varying the delay preceding the occurrence of a target event and by varying the number of different target events. Age-related performance differences emerged when there were several different target events but not when there was one target event presented several times. Age-related performance differences, when they occurred, were associated with poorer retrospective memory for the target events. The results were interpreted in terms of a componential analysis of prospective memory, which assumes both similarities and differences between prospective and retrospective memory.

Cue-focused and reflexive-associative processes in prospective memory retrieval

Several theories of event-based prospective memory were evaluated in 3 experiments. The results depended on the association between the target event and the intended action. For associated target-action pairs (a) preexposure of nontargets did not reduce prospective memory, (b) divided attention did not reduce prospective memory, (c) prospective memory was better than when the target event and intended action were not associated, and (d) prospective memory was characterized by retrieval of the precise intended action. These results converge on the view that retrieval is mediated by a reflexive-associative process. In contrast, for unassociated pairs (a) preexposure of nontargets reduced prospective memory, and (b) divided attention reduced prospective memory. These results implicate cue-focused retrieval processes and are most consistent with a discrepancy-plus-search model. The entire pattern implicates both cue-focused and reflexive-associative processes and more generally supports a multiprocess framework of prospective memory (M. A. McDaniel & G. O. Einstein, 2000).

Prospective memory: A neuropsychological study.

To examine the neuropsychology of prospective remembering, older adults were divided preexperimentally into 4 groups on the basis of their scores on 2 composite measures: one assessing frontal lobe function and the other assessing medial temporal lobe function. The groups reflected the factorial combination of high and low functioning for each neuropsychological system, and they were tested on an event-based laboratory prospective memory task. High-functioning frontal participants showed better prospective remembering than low-functioning frontal participants. There was no significant difference in prospective memory performance attributable to medial temporal functioning. The results support the theoretical notion that frontal lobe processes play a key role in prospective remembering. Discussion focuses on the particular components of prospective memory performance that frontal lobes might mediate.

A two-process model of strategic monitoring in event-based prospective memory: Activation/retrieval mode and checking

Theorists have suggested that individuals may remember to execute event‐based intended actions by deploying executive or attentional resources to monitor for the markers or target events that indicate that it is appropriate to execute the intended actions (e.g., McDaniel & Einstein, 2000; Shallice & Burgess, 1991), but these strategic monitoring views are not specific about the processes that strategic monitoring entails. A more specific idea is outlined here (see also Guynn, 2001) and an experiment with results consistent with this view is reported. According to this two‐process view, strategic monitoring entails maintaining the cognitive system in a prospective memory retrieval mode, which may be mediated by increased activation of the prospective memory representation, plus checking whether the circumstances to execute the intended action are present. In the current experiment, concurrent task impairment on nontarget trials, on which participants were instructed to press a key if they saw a target even...

Prospective memory: When reminders fail

A frequent assumption in the area of prospective memory is that a reminder to do an activity in the future improves the likelihood of doing the activity. The results of four experiments indicated, however, that the most general version of this assumption is incorrect. Subjects were either reminded of a prospective memory task several times during a retention interval or not reminded of the prospective memory task. The most effective reminders referred both to the prospective memory target events and to the intended activity. Reminders that referred only to the target events did not improve prospective memory (relative to a no-reminder control). Reminders that referred only to the intended activity did improve prospective memory, but not to the level of reminders that referred both to the target events and to the intended activity. Instructions to imagine oneself performing the prospective memory task did not further improve prospective memory. Neither the delay between the prospective memory instructions and the prospective memory cover task nor the delay between a reminder and a prospective memory target event significantly influenced performance. The results, which are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications, support a new theory of prospective memory and suggest surprising conditions under which reminders fail to benefit prospective memory.

Apolipoprotein E and prospective memory in normally aging adults.

The epsilon4 allele of apolipoprotein E (APOE) is an established risk factor for Alzheimers disease, despite uncertainty as to its effect on cognitive function in normal aging. Some evidence suggests poor episodic memory and executive functioning in epsilon4 allele carriers. Prospective memory has been overlooked in investigations of the relationship between APOE and cognition. The authors used a laboratory paradigm to examine the relationship between prospective memory and APOE status in healthy elderly adults, and they varied the association (high vs. low) between a target word and a response word. The authors found a significant deficit in prospective memory for epsilon4 allele carriers but no effect of association in either group. The results suggest the deficit was due to failure of the prospective component of the task.

Disentangling encoding versus retrieval explanations of the bizarreness effect: implications for distinctiveness.

Recall effects attributed to distinctiveness have been explained by both encoding and retrieval accounts. Resolution of this theoretical controversy has been clouded because the typical methodology confounds the encoding and retrieval contexts. Using bizarre and common sentences as materials, we introduce a paradigm that decouples the nature of the encoding context (mixed vs. unmixed lists of items) from the retrieval set (mixed vs. unmixed retrieval sets). Experiment 1 presented unmixed lists for study, and Experiment 2 presented mixed lists for study. In both experiments, significant bizarreness effects were obtained in free recall when the retrieval set intermixed items but not when the retrieval set consisted of only one item type. Also, Experiment 1, using a repeated testing procedure, did not reveal evidence for more extensive encoding of bizarre sentences than of common sentences. The results support the idea that retrieval dynamics primarily mediate the bizarreness effect, and perhaps more generally, distinctiveness effects.

Target preexposure eliminates the effect of distraction on event-based prospective memory

Prospective memory is critical to everyday functioning and can be vulnerable to distraction. We conducted an experiment to explore whether we could buffer prospective memory against distraction. For half the participants, we preexposed stimuli that were later designated as prospective memory targets. Then, all participants performed an ongoing task (in which the prospective memory task was embedded) under standard and high attentional demand (i.e., under full and divided attention). Target preexposure improved prospective memory and eliminated the significant divided attention effect. Thus, target preexposure seems to buffer prospective memory against the disruptive effect of dividing attention. Moreover, target preexposure seemed to help participants to respond with the correct intended action. This result implies that preexposure to the target stimuli facilitated the encoding of an association between the target stimuli and the intended action, perhaps promoting relatively more reflexive retrieval and thereby buffering prospective memory against distraction.

Goal specificity and knowledge acquisition in statistics problem solving: Evidence for attentional focus

Solving training problems with nonspecific goals (NG; i.e., solving for all possible unknown values) often results in better transfer than solving training problems with standard goals (SG; i.e., solving for one particular unknown value). In this study, we evaluated an attentional focus explanation of the goal specificity effect. According to the attentional focus view, solving NG problems causes attention to be directed to local relations among successive problem states, whereas solving SG problems causes attention to be directed to relations between the various problem states and the goal state. Attention to the former is thought to enhance structural knowledge about the problem domain and thus promote transfer. Results supported this view because structurally different transfer problems were solved faster following NG training than following SG training. Moreover, structural knowledge representations revealed more links depicting local relations following NG training and more links to the training goal following SG training. As predicted, these effects were obtained only by domain novices.