Deactivation of prospective memory intentions: Examining the role of the stimulus–response link

Abstract

Successful prospective remembering involves formation of a stimulus (e.g., bottle of medication and/or place where the bottle is kept)-response (e.g., taking a medication) link. We investigated the role of this link in the deactivation of no-longer-relevant prospective memory intentions, as evidenced by commission error risk. Experiment 1a contrasted two hypotheses of intention deactivation (degree of fulfillment and response frequency) by holding constant the degree of intention fulfillment (e.g., participants responded to one of two target words) while manipulating the number of times the intention was performed. Findings supported the response frequency hypothesis. Experiment 1b employed novel lure trials to examine what "stimulus" participants link the prospective memory response to-target words and/or the salient contextual cue-and compared commission errors to Experiment 1a. Findings suggested the salient context alone does not always function as the stimulus. Collectively these findings, in conjunction with those of Experiment 2 (a within-experiment replication) and a combined analysis, suggest that (a) intention deactivation is facilitated by prior responding (formation/strengthening of stimulus-response links), but additional research is needed to establish the robustness of this effect, and (b) when responding frequently to targets, participants are more likely to bind the response to the context alone than to the target or target/context combination, possibly because they learn to rely on context to predict target occurrence. The latter finding was robust and indicates that deactivation of the appropriate stimulus (target and/or context)-response link may be a critical component of reducing commission errors.

Goal-Based Binding of Irrelevant Stimulus Features for Action Slips

“…Such strategies might be expected to boost performance in light of accumulating evidence for a consistent impact even of merely instructed mapping rules (e.g., Braem et al, 2019 ; Cohen-Kdoshay & Meiran, 2009 ; Kunde et al, 2003 ; Meiran et al, 2015 ; Pfeuffer et al, 2017 ; Wenke et al, 2007 ), which is possibly mediated by the formation of efficient action triggers ( Kiesel et al, 2007 ) or implementation intentions (“if S rel , then R cor ”; Gollwitzer, 1999 ). This account would thus assume that previous evidence for goal-based binding mirrors covert strengthening of a mapping rule rather than actual binding (for a related discussion in the literature on prospective memory, see Streeper & Bugg, 2021 ).…”

Lower‐level associations in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome: Convergence between hyperbinding of stimulus and response features and procedural hyperfunctioning theories

“…More recently, it has been described how binding of event files can lead to changes in episodic memory traces, which provides a link between event file coding and declarative memories (Frings et al, 2020). A similar approach was taken in case of prospective memories, that is, when someone has to remember the intention to act in the future (Streeper & Bugg, 2020). While these accounts are paramount in understanding S‐R associations as building blocks of declarative memories, it is important to consider that the most common task to investigate event file coding (Colzato et al, 2006) is one resembling procedural rather than declarative memory paradigms (Figure 2).…”

Prior experience with target encounter affects attention allocation and prospective memory performance

“…Research on commission errors, or whether people respond to targets that are displayed after the prospective memory task has ended, has found that the number of targets encountered in the task predicts the rate of commission errors. Commission errors are higher when fewer of the targets are presented in the prospective memory task (Bugg & Scullin, 2013 ; Streeper & Bugg, 2021 ).…”