REFERENCES

1
The Effects of Cue Factors and Priming on
Prospective Memory Performance
Jon B. Holbrook San Jose State University
Foundation/NASA Ames Research Center
R. Key Dismukes NASA Ames Research Center

• BACKGROUND
• Prospective memory (PM) requires recollection of
  an intended action without an explicit prompt to
  attempt retrieval. McDaniel and Einstein (2000)
  have proposed a multiprocess framework in which
  retrieval of an intention may be supported by
  strategic monitoring of the environment for the
  target event as well as by automatic retrieval of
  the intention triggered by environmental cues.
  McDaniel and Einstein argue that the extent to
  which PM retrieval relies on automatic versus
  strategic processing depends on the
  characteristics of the PM task, target cue,
  ongoing task, and the individual.
• It is assumed that strategic monitoring for the
  PM target cue draws upon resources that could
  otherwise be allocated to performing the ongoing
  task. Therefore, any cost (i.e., decreased
  accuracy or increased response latency) to
  ongoing task performance when accompanied by a
  concurrent PM task would suggest that
  participants are employing a monitoring strategy
  or otherwise devoting resources to maintaining
  the intended goal.
• Our study explores specific conditions that may
  affect relative use of automatic and strategic
  processing when performing PM tasks. We examined
  the effects of cue specificity and cue frequency
  on both PM and ongoing task performance. These
  variables have already been shown to affect PM
  performance (e.g., Ellis Milne, 1996 Ellis,
  Kvavilashvili, Milne, 1999). However,
  examination of costs to the ongoing task under
  these conditions should allow us to examine
  whether the effects of these manipulations
  reflect a change in strategy by the participants.
• We also attempted to manipulate the likelihood
  that participants would engage in strategic
  monitoring. Bargh et al. (2001) have provided
  evidence that mental representations of goals can
  become activated outside of conscious awareness,
  and subsequent behavior can be guided by these
  goals. Accordingly, some participants in the
  current study were exposed to concepts related to
  conscientious task performance, and use of
  strategies was evaluated with post-experiment
  debriefings. We predicted that primed
  participants would be more likely to engage in
  strategic monitoring processes to carry out the
  PM task.
• METHOD
• Participants
• 88 university students between ages 18-40
  participated for course credit.
• Procedure
• Participants received three blocks of 78 ongoing
  task trials. They saw three words on the
  computer screen, one above the other two. Their
  task was to choose which of the two bottom words
  was most like the top word.
• Between blocks 1 and 2, participants completed a
  filler task in which they constructed
  grammatically correct sentences out of sets of
  five words presented in a scrambled order (e.g.,
  test his survived chemistry Joe).

• Independent variables
• PM target specificity. Between subjects, 3 levels
• one target lemon, lime, OR raisin
• three targets lemon, lime, AND raisin (respond
  to ANY of these words)
• category label fruit (respond to ANY fruit
  name)
• PM target frequency. Within subjects, 2 levels
  (counterbalanced across blocks 2 and 3)
• Low frequency 3 targets (every 26 trials/90 s)
• High frequency 6 targets (every 13 trials/45 s)
  or 9 targets (every 9 trials/30 s)
• Strategy use. Between subjects, 2 levels
  (determined by post-experiment questionnaire)
• Strategy reported (e.g., consciously searched for
  PM target)
• No strategy reported (e.g., let PM target pop
  out)
• Priming. Between subjects, 2 levels
• Primed during filler task, half the sentences
  included concepts related to conscientious PM
  performance (respond, examine, keep in mind,
  search, think about, check, remember).
• Not primed during filler task, all sentences
  contained performance-neutral terms.
• RESULTS

• PM Target Frequency
• Overall, participants PM responses were more
  accurate in the high frequency condition.
• Performance in the low frequency condition was
  more accurate when preceded by a high frequency
  block.
• No significant effect of target frequency on RT
  to ongoing task trials was detected.

Priming and Reported Use of Monitoring Strategies

• PM Target Specificity
• Introduction of a PM task (in block 2) produced a
  significant cost to ongoing task RT only for
  3-targets and category conditions.
• No cost to ongoing task RT was detected in block
  3 for any condition, despite continued presence
  of a concurrent PM task.
• Faster block 3 RTs do not reflect a practice
  effect on the ongoing task alone, because RTs in
  the no PM task condition were equivalent across
  all 3 blocks.

Primed Not primed
Strategy 25 9
No strategy 11 27

• Priming correlated with reported use of
  monitoring strategies (see table above).
• Participants who reported using a monitoring
  strategy were more accurate on the PM task.
• No significant effect of reported strategy use on
  RT to ongoing task trials was detected.

• CONCLUSIONS
• Prospective remembering incurred costs to the
  ongoing tasks under some conditions, but not
  others. This finding is consistent with the
  multiprocess framework proposed by McDaniel and
  Einstein (2000).
• Costs to the ongoing task of performing a
  concurrent PM task may be mitigated by practice
  or experience, or by high PM target specificity.
• Priming participants through the presentation of
  concepts related to conscientious performance
  correlated with reported use of monitoring
  strategies. Given that the use of monitoring
  strategies seemed to improve PM performance,
  techniques such as this may prove useful in the
  development of countermeasures for PM failures.

• Note In the figure above, asterisk () indicates
  significant difference from Block 1 RT, p lt .05.
• Overall PM accuracy increased from block 2 to
  block 3.
• In general, participants were both faster to
  respond to ongoing task trials and more accurate
  on the PM task in block 3 (i.e., no
  speed-accuracy tradeoff).

REFERENCES Bargh, J. A., Gollwitzer, P. M.,
Lee-Chai, A., Barndollar, K., Troetschel, R.
(2001). The automated will Nonconscious
activation and pursuit of behavioral goals.
Journal of Personality Social Psychology, 81,
1014-1027. Ellis, J., Kvavilashvili, L., Milne,
A. (1999). Experimental tests of prospective
remembering The influence of cue-event frequency
on performance. British Journal of Psychology,
90, 9-23. Ellis, J. Milne, A. (1996). Retrieval
cue specificity and the realization of delayed
intentions. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 49A, 862-887. McDaniel, M. A.
Einstein, G. O. (2000). Strategic and automatic
processes in prospective memory retrieval A
multiprocess framework. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 14, S127-S144.