Spontaneous Retrieval in Prospective Memory

O ur chapter, like others in this volume, focuses on episodic memory. Other chapters have approached episodic memory as a process or system to preserve an individual's mental record of his or her past. Here we take a broader view that episodic memory also allows people to mentally place themselves forward in time. Tulving (2004) has termed this process proscopic chronesthesia. Proscopic chronesthesia, likely unique to humans, supports forward looking activities, the anticipation of what we will be doing in the near and long term, what we are likely to feel in anticipated events, what we hope to accomplish, and the planning activities that accompany this future oriented behavior. Closely aligned with such mental time-travel is prospective memory, which is the focus of the present chapter. Prospective memory is memory for activities that we intend to perform in the future. More specifically, prospective memory refers to remembering to perform an intended action at an appropriate moment in the future. With even minimal thought, it is clear that everyday living is replete with prospective memory tasks. We need to remember to give colleagues messages, to pack a desired item in our work bag, to remember to pick up some grocery item on the way home from work, and to remember to attend scheduled appointments. For one of us, the last prospective memory challenge is especially salient because recently, at the time that a faculty meeting was scheduled, MAM forgot about the meeting (his colleagues were much amused that a prospective memory researcher would forget the meeting). Prospective memory is also needed for handling health-related needs such as remembering to exercise, monitor various bodily indices like blood pressure or blood-sugar levels, and to take medication. The latter is increasingly frequent as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 44% of Americans (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs.hus.htm) have taken a prescription medication over the past month and 17% have taken three or more medications. Despite the prevalence of prospective memory in every day life, the scientific study of memory dating from Ebbinghaus (1885/1964) has not included