Processing of negative stimuli facilitates event-based prospective memory only under low memory load

ABSTRACT

Event-based prospective memory (PM) is related to the ability to execute a previously planned action at the appropriate situation. Previous literature showed enhanced performance when emotional stimuli are used as PM targets. However, it was entirely unexplored whether this effect is susceptible to prospective memory load (PML), related to the number of target events that are relevant for the pending PM task. Here we presented participants with angry or neutral faces for an identity judgment (ongoing task). A different number of faces, depending on low vs. high levels of PML, served as PM targets. The results showed better PM performance following negative than neutral targets, but only under low levels of PML. This indicates that the bottom-up facilitation driven by negative stimuli serving as PM targets dramatically depends on the available attention resources allocated for monitoring the incoming information.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion
• prospective memory
• face processing
• attentional monitoring
• prospective memory load

Acknowledgement

We thank Zachary Yaple for language revision.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Additionally, we controlled whether load manipulation was confounded by stimulus repetition, i.e. while in the low PML block the same target face was presented 24 times, in the high PML block the 2 target faces were presented 12 times each. Accuracy and RT data derived from the 24 PM targets were divided into 4 equal parts, including 6 sequential PM targets each (i.e. from PM target no. 1 to PM target no. 6; from PM target no. 7 to PM target no. 12; etc.). These data were entered into two 2 × 4 ANOVAs (one for the accuracy and one for the RT data), including the within-subject factor of PML (low vs. high) and PM target presentation (in the first, second, third, or fourth part of the block). If the greater number of target repetitions in the low PML block affected differently retrieval of PM intentions, we would expect an interaction between the two factors. This would indicate enhanced performance in detecting PM targets from the beginning to the end of the block selectively for the low load condition, which included more target repetitions. However, we just found a main effect of PM target presentation (accuracy: [F(1, 21) = 5.05, p = .036; η²= 0.194]; RT: [F(1, 21) = 35.08, p < .001; η²= 0.626]), but not other significant effects (all Fs < 0.928; all ps > .346). These results revealed increased performance in detecting PM targets along the block, irrespective of the PML condition (i.e. irrespective of the current amount of stimulus repetition). The absence of the interaction between the two factors also ruled out the possibility that an increased number of targets in the high PML condition resulted in an increased effort to monitor for the targets along with the duration of the block.

Additional information

Funding

The study has been partially funded by the Russian Academic Excellence Project “5-100”.