Consolidation of Prospective Memory: Effects of Sleep on Completed and Reinstated Intentions

Barner, Christine; Seibold, Mitja; Born, Jan; Diekelmann, Susanne · 2017 · Crossref

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02025

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Summary

This study investigates the conditions under which sleep facilitates the consolidation of prospective memory, specifically examining whether this benefit persists when an intention is completed before sleep or if it can be restored through reinstatement. Prior research established that sleep improves prospective memory performance, particularly under divided attention, by strengthening cue-intention associations. However, because intentions are typically forgotten once executed (the Zeigarnik effect), it remained unclear if sleep benefits apply to completed intentions or if those intentions could be reactivated to gain sleep-dependent consolidation. The researchers conducted three experiments using a lexical decision task where participants had to detect cue words and type associated responses. In Experiment 1, participants completed the prospective memory task two hours after learning, before a night of sleep or wakefulness, and were then tested unexpectedly two days later. In Experiment 2, participants completed the initial task but were explicitly instructed about a second test two days later, thereby reinstating the intention after its initial completion. In Experiment 3, participants were informed about both test sessions immediately after learning, keeping the intention active throughout the entire period. Performance was measured by cue detection rates under full and divided attention conditions. The results demonstrated that sleep did not facilitate prospective memory when the intention was completed before sleep. In Experiment 1, both sleep and wake groups showed impaired cue detection under divided attention, indicating no sleep benefit. Experiment 2 revealed that simply reinstating the intention after its initial completion was insufficient to restore the sleep benefit; both groups again performed worse under divided attention. However, in Experiment 3, where the intention remained active across the sleep period due to early instruction about the delayed test, sleep significantly improved performance. Sleep participants maintained high cue detection rates under divided attention, whereas wake participants’ performance declined, replicating the sleep benefit observed in previous studies. These findings conclude that for prospective memory to benefit from sleep consolidation, the intention must remain active during the sleep period. Furthermore, the intention must be induced in temporal proximity to the initial learning session; reinstating a completed intention after the fact does not trigger sleep-dependent consolidation. This suggests that sleep selectively strengthens memories deemed relevant for future behavior, and once an intention is executed and deactivated, it loses its eligibility for sleep-mediated enhancement.

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• prospective memory interruptions