Individual differences in episodic memory abilities predict successful prospective memory output monitoring

ABSTRACT

Output monitoring refers to memory for one’s previously completed actions. In the context of prospective memory (PM) (e.g., remembering to take medication), failures of output monitoring can result in repetitions and omissions of planned actions (e.g., over- or under-medication). To be successful in output monitoring paradigms, participants must flexibly control attention to detect PM cues as well as engage controlled retrieval of previous actions whenever a particular cue is encountered. The current study examined individual differences in output monitoring abilities in a group of younger adults differing in attention control (AC) and episodic memory (EM) abilities. The results showed that AC ability uniquely predicted successful cue detection on the first presentation, whereas EM ability uniquely predicted successful output monitoring on the second presentation. The current study highlights the importance of examining external correlates of PM abilities and contributes to the growing body of research on individual differences in PM.

KEYWORDS:

• Prospective memory
• output monitoring
• individual differences
• attention
• episodic memory

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Lia Kvavilashvili, Michael Scullin, Jill Shelton, and Jessica Hacker for their comments on a previous version of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Slightly different results have been found using a habitual PM intention paradigm in which the same cue/target action is required multiple times throughout the ongoing task. For example, distinctive responses reduce time-based repetition errors for older adults (McDaniel et al., 2009), and emotionally salient cues reduce event-based repetition errors for older adults (May et al., 2015). Likewise, divided attention increases repetition errors for older adults but has little influence on younger adults in the habitual PM task (Einstein et al., 1998; McDaniel et al., 2009).

2. As part of a larger study, participants also completed a battery of working memory tasks. However, in the current study we focus only on the EM and AC constructs that have previously been associated with output monitoring abilities.

3. Similar results were found when examining conditionalised performance on the reduced sample of participants with variability in early cue detection and when using imputed means to account for participants with no variability in early cue detection. Taken together, the outcome of these analyses did not depend on how we dealt with conditionalisation of performance for individuals with no variability.

4. For example, repetition errors could occur because participants remembered previously responding to the cue but simply forgot they needed to press a different (“repeat”) response on the second presentation, whereas omission errors could occur because participants remembered not responding to the cue but thought the appropriate response was to press the “repeat” key (since it was the second time encountering it).

Additional information

Funding

B. Hunter Ball was supported by the National Institute on Aging Training Grant (T32AG000030-40) and Gene A. Brewer was supported by a Laboratory for Analytical Sciences Grant during writing of portions of this manuscript.