Incentive Effects in Prospective Remembering

Summary

Prospective remembering involves the remembering of information which has implications for actions to be performed in the future. In this study, the effects of level of incentive and structure of remembering task—habitual vs. episodic—upon prospective remembering were investigated. Forty-eight male and female university students were asked to mail post cards to the E on specified dates. S s in the high incentive condition mailed cards fewer days late and remembered more often than S s in the low incentive condition. S s in the high incentive condition also were more likely to use an external cue strategy than a cognitive strategy to facilitate remembering. It is concluded that motivation ought to be regarded as a critical variable in the theoretical analysis of prospective remembering.