Predictors of everyday prospective memory performance: A superiority in the execution of event-based tasks over time-based tasks reverses in real-life situations.

Abstract

Prospective memory (PM) involves remembering intended actions in response to a target event or at a particular time. Both the PM theories and laboratory-based studies suggest that event-based tasks are less difficult to perform. The present study investigated whether the superior performance of event-based tasks generalizes to real-life intentions, and examined the relationships between the intention completion and various characteristics of daily living, for example, busyness, routine, affect, and stress. Every day, for 5 days, 129 participants listed their intentions for the following day and indicated whether intentions were time-based or event-based. As each day concluded, they evaluated the intention completion and characteristics of the passing day. The difference in performance between the two types of tasks was reversed using real-life intentions: Time-based intentions were performed better. Performance was also positively related to routine and positive affect and adversely related to stress. Mechanisms underlying PM performance in daily life are discussed.

Sometimes they show, sometimes they don't: Appointment attendance as a naturalistic prospective memory task

“…To examine the role of monitoring processes in appointment attendance, we measured participants' perceived importance of attending. Similar to previous work on the benefits of higher perceived importance on PM performance (e.g., Andrzejewski et al, 1991; Ihle et al, 2012; Niedźwieńska et al, 2013; Szarras & Niedźwieńska, 2011; Wójcik et al, 2022), we predicted that Show participants would perceive attendance as more important than No‐Show participants. We were also interested in whether Show participants would report fewer instances of everyday PM failures compared to No‐Show participants, thereby suggesting overall better memory in daily life.…”

“…Examining self-reported strategy use revealed that proportionately more Show than No-Show participants used strategies to remember their appointments, supporting the notion that control processes, like strategy use, promote appointment attendance (Ihle et al, 2012;W ojcik et al, 2022). Importantly, it may not be the number of strategies but the types of implemented strategies that distinguish those who remember to attend their appointments.…”

“…PM performance benefits from strategy use within laboratory (e.g., Einstein & McDaniel, 1990; Reese‐Melancon et al, 2019) and naturalistic settings (e.g., Ihle et al, 2012; Wójcik et al, 2022; Woods et al, 2021), including for important daily TBPM tasks, like medication adherence (e.g., Insel et al, 2016; Zogg et al, 2012). Relevant work examining telephone appointments (e.g., call the experimenter at a designated time) suggests that breakdowns in strategic encoding and retrieval processes can negatively impact the accuracy and ultimate success of PM execution (e.g., Carey et al, 2006; Zogg et al, 2010), but using reminders can help individuals better remember to make a call at the appropriate time (e.g., Kvavilashvili & Fisher, 2007; Maylor, 1990; Walbaum, 1997).…”

“…Work by Penningroth and Scott (2013) suggests that individuals are more likely to think of one, if not multiple, strategies to assist with PM tasks viewed as more important. Furthermore, PM tasks considered important are more likely to be executed (Ihle et al, 2012; Kliegel et al, 2001; Kvavilashvili, 1987; Niedźwieńska et al, 2013; Wójcik et al, 2022), including appointment attendance (Andrzejewski et al, 1991). Awareness of one's memory ability is another metacognitive monitoring process that may influence a person's decision to utilize a strategy.…”

“…Based on previous work (e.g., Ihle et al, 2012;W ojcik et al, 2022), we anticipated that more Show participants would report using a strategy to remember to attend their appointment than would No-Show participants. We also investigated potential differences in specific types of implemented strategies to determine whether some strategies were more strongly associated with attendance than others.…”