Target preexposure eliminates the effect of distraction on event-based prospective memory

Guynn, Melissa J.; McDaniel, Mark A. · 2007 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/bf03194094

archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified

Get this paper ↗ (DOI — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)

Summary

This study investigates whether preexposing individuals to prospective memory targets can buffer against the disruptive effects of distraction. Prospective memory involves executing intended actions at appropriate future moments, a function critical for everyday tasks but vulnerable to failure when attention is divided by demanding ongoing activities. The authors sought to determine if prior exposure to target stimuli could enhance detection and retrieval, thereby mitigating the negative impact of high attentional demands. The experiment employed a 2 × 2 mixed factorial design with 82 undergraduate participants. The between-subjects factor was target preexposure (present vs. absent), and the within-subjects factor was attentional demand during the ongoing task (standard vs. high). In the preexposure condition, participants solved word fragments and anagrams containing the target words before receiving prospective memory instructions. All participants then performed a word rating task (the ongoing activity) in which they had to write a specific response word upon encountering a target. High attentional demand was induced by requiring concurrent performance of a digit detection task. Performance was measured using both a strict criterion (correct response word) and a lenient criterion (correct word or an “X” indicating partial recall). Results indicated that target preexposure significantly improved prospective memory performance compared to no preexposure. Crucially, preexposure eliminated the significant negative effect of divided attention. In the no-preexposure group, high attentional demand significantly impaired prospective memory under both scoring criteria. In contrast, the preexposure group showed no significant decline in performance under high attentional demand; in fact, performance was numerically higher under high demand than standard demand. Analysis of digit detection errors revealed that the no-preexposure group incurred significantly more errors than the control group, suggesting engagement of costly preparatory attentional processes. The preexposure group did not show this cost, indicating a shift in retrieval mechanisms. Furthermore, preexposure reduced instances where participants recognized the need to act but forgot the specific action, suggesting enhanced encoding of the target-action association. The findings imply that target preexposure facilitates the formation of a robust association between the target stimulus and the intended action. This strong association promotes reflexive, automatic retrieval, which does not rely on the preparatory attentional processes that are vulnerable to distraction. Consequently, preexposure buffers prospective memory against the disruptive effects of divided attention. These results support a multiprocess view of prospective memory, suggesting that individuals can utilize different cognitive processes depending on the strength of the target-action association, and that manipulating this association can qualitatively change the retrieval mechanism from effortful to reflexive.

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed.

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.

Topics

Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.

• prospective memory interruptions