Forgetting of intentions in demanding situations is rapid.

Einstein, Gilles O.; McDaniel, Mark A.; Williford, Carrie L.; Pagan, Jason L.; Dismukes, R. Key · 2003 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1037/1076-898x.9.3.147

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Summary

This study investigates the rapid forgetting of intentions in demanding work settings, addressing a gap in prospective memory research regarding brief delays. While traditional prospective memory paradigms examine delays of minutes, real-world high-stakes environments, such as aviation and air traffic control, often require individuals to defer intended actions for only seconds while managing high cognitive loads. The authors sought to determine if maintaining intentions over these brief intervals (5, 15, and 40 seconds) is a trivial task or if it suffers from rapid decay under demanding conditions. They tested three theoretical views: the "minimal demands" view (maintaining intentions requires negligible resources), the "prohibitively expensive" view (maintaining intentions is too costly, leading to immediate decay), and the "active maintenance" view (maintaining intentions requires periodic, resource-intensive activation). The researchers conducted three experiments using a novel paradigm designed to simulate complex work environments. Participants performed a series of eight different cover tasks (e.g., trivia, math, pleasantness ratings) that changed every 60 seconds. During specific trials, a red screen signaled an intention to press a designated key, but participants were instructed to withhold this response until the current task ended. The delay between the signal and the task change varied at 5, 15, or 40 seconds. To approximate high-demand settings, the study manipulated attentional load by introducing a concurrent digit-monitoring task during the delay period. Additionally, Experiment 1 included interruptions where participants had to switch to a secondary task during the 40-second delay. Experiments 2 and 3 further examined whether strategic rehearsal or implementation intention strategies could mitigate forgetting. The results demonstrated that forgetting of intentions in these demanding situations is rapid and significant. Performance declined substantially even over brief delays, contradicting the minimal demands view. The data supported the active maintenance view, indicating that maintaining an intention requires continuous resource allocation that competes with ongoing tasks. Increasing attentional demands through divided attention or interruptions significantly impaired prospective memory performance. Crucially, Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that neither strategic rehearsal nor implementation intention strategies reduced this rapid forgetting. The findings suggest that the human cognitive system struggles to maintain intentions over brief intervals when processing resources are shared with demanding ongoing activities, highlighting that prospective memory failures in high-load contexts are not merely due to long delays but to the immediate fragility of activated intentions.

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• prospective memory interruptions