The Effect of Cue-Familiarity, Cue-Distinctiveness, and Retention Interval on Prospective Remembering

Abstract

Five experiments investigated the effects of cue familiarity, cue distinctiveness, and retention interval on prospective remembering. Results showed that (1) performance in a prospective memory task is facilitated when the cue is unfamiliar and/or distinctive; and (2) it is impaired by 3-minutes' delay between the instructions and the task (Experiment 1). A beneficial effect of distinctiveness was also found when perceptual rather than semantic distinctiveness was tested (Experiment 2). Experiments 3 and 4 ruled out the hypotheses that "unfulfilled expectancy" of an event (i.e. non-appearance of the cue during training) (Experiment 3), or some sort of "habituation" in the target context (Experiment 4), may have caused the low performance observed in the delayed conditions. Finally, results from Experiment 5 showed that delay negatively affected prospective remembering when it was filled with either a demanding interpolated activity (practice in a STM task) or an undemanding motoric activity (repetitive hands movements). Unfilled delay and an undemanding verbal activity (counting) were found not to affect prospective memory. Implications for the mechanisms underlying prospective remembering are discussed.

The delay period as an opportunity to think about future intentions: Effects of delay length and delay task difficulty on young adult’s prospective memory performance

“…In fact, the current study shows that the demands of the delay task have an impact on later PM performance and that thinking about one's PM intentions during this period is positively correlate with later PM performance. While much attention has focused on the effect of the length of delay on later PM performance (e.g., Brandimonte & Passolunghi, 1994;Hicks, Marsh, & Russell, 2000;Nigro & Cicogna, 2000), our results suggest that the content of the delay interval is just as important, if not more important, than delay length. Future work should continue to examine the relations between task difficulty, delay interval length, and PM performance, as this is an area of research that is potentially complex and merits further exploration.…”

“…In a sample of adults, Brandimonte and Passolunghi (1994) found that PM performance was not affected by a delay when it was unfilled or filled with simple counting compared to when the delay interval was filled with a short-term memory task or a motor task where delay negatively affected PM. Mahy and Moses (2015) found that 4-and 5-year-old children did worse on a PM task after the delay was filled with a challenging version of a visual working memory task (self-ordered pointing task) compared to when the delay was filled with an easier version of the same task.…”

“…Similar to the research on the impact of delay length on PM performance, the findings on the effect of delay task difficulty on PM performance are mixed. Some results suggest that a cognitively demanding delay task has a more negative impact on PM performance compared to less demanding task (see Brandimonte & Passolunghi, 1994;Mahy & Moses, 2015) and other studies have found no effect of delay task difficulty on later PM performance (Cook, Ball, & Brewer, 2014;Shelton et al, 2013).…”

“…Although the majority of studies have found no effect (e.g., Einstein, Holland, McDaniel, & Guynn, 1992;Guynn, McDaniel, & Einstein, 1998;Stone, Dismukes, & Remington, 2001) or a negative impact of a longer delay interval on PM performance (e.g., Brandimonte & Passolunghi, 1994;Johansson, Andersson, & Ronnberg, 2000;McBride, Coane, Drwal, & LaRose, 2013;Nigro, Senese, Natullo, & Sergi, 2002;Somerville, Wellman, & Cultice, 1983;Tierney, Bucks, Weinborn, Hodgson, & Woods, 2016), two studies have found a positive impact of a longer delay on PM (Hicks, Marsh, & Russell, 2000;Mahy & Moses, 2011). Hicks, Marsh, and Russell (2000) examined the impact of delay interval length on young adults' PM in a series of experiments.…”

Opportunistic Planning: Being Reminded of Pending Goals

“…Other prospective memory studies present an external cue at the time a goal is to be achieved (e.g., ''Circle the word 'house' each time you see it'' (as in Brandimonte & Passolunghi, 1994;Einstein & McDaniel, 1990)) or explicitly manipulate external cue availability. A study by Loftus (1971) varied the specificity of the retrieval cues presented.…”