To address the mixed results reported in previous studies, the present experiments examined forgetting in prospective memory (PM) by manipulating the delay between the PM instructions and cue presentation in event-based PM tasks. PM performance was measured for delays of 2-20 min in Experiment 1 and for delays of approximately 1-10 min in Experiment 2. Experiment 2 included both focal and nonfo...

Behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) correlates of monitoring in an event-based prospective memory (PM) task were compared during blocks with rare versus frequent PM target presentations relative to an ongoing-task only condition. For both rare and frequent PM conditions, behavioral interference costs in terms of longer reaction times (RTs) were observed. Likewise, during both PM blocks...

A meta-analysis of prospective memory (PM) studies revealed that in laboratory settings younger participants outperform older participants on tests of both time- and event-based PM (rs=-.39 and -.34, respectively). Event-based PM tasks that impose higher levels of controlled strategic demand are associated with significantly larger age effects than event-based PM tasks that are supported by rel...

Prospective memory involves the formation and execution of intended actions and is essential for autonomous living. In this study (N=32), the effect of the nature of PM cues (semantic versus perceptual) on established event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited in PM tasks (N300 and prospective positivity) was investigated. PM cues defined by their perceptual features clearly elicited the N300 and...

The preparatory attentional and memory processes theory of prospective memory (PM) assumes that PM retrieval requires resource-demanding preparatory attentional processes, whereas the multiprocess theory assumes that retrieval can also occur spontaneously. On the basis of showing slowing on an ongoing task (i.e., task interference)-even when the PM cue was highly salient (i.e., the participant'...

The current study measured forgetting in a time-based, naturalistic prospective memory (PM) task. In Experiment 1, younger and older participants were asked to mail a stamped postcard on a date that was delayed 1, 2, 5, 14, or 28 days in the future. In Experiment 2, a different sample of older participants completed the same task with similar delays to replicate results for the older sample in ...

We examined multi-process (MP) and transfer-appropriate processing descriptions of prospective memory (PM). Three conditions were compared that varied the overlap in processing type (perceptual/conceptual) between the ongoing and PM tasks such that two conditions involved a match of perceptual processing and one condition involved a mismatch in processing (conceptual ongoing task/perceptual PM ...

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between prospective memory (PM) and consciousness by examining cost to ongoing activities, with cost assumed to reflect a direction of conscious resources away from the ongoing task in service of the PM task. Ongoing task blocks in which the PM task was relevant or irrelevant were alternated to achieve three aims: determine if...