Distinct monitoring strategies underlie costs and performance in prospective memory

Koslov, Seth R.; Bulls, Landry S.; Jarrod A. Lewis‐Peacock · 2022 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/s13421-022-01275-5

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Summary

This study investigates the cognitive mechanisms underlying prospective memory (PM), specifically addressing the limitations of using behavioral "PM costs" (reaction time slowing) as an indirect proxy for active monitoring. While PM costs are commonly used to infer the allocation of cognitive resources toward future intentions, they do not distinguish between different monitoring strategies or fully explain PM performance. The authors aimed to disentangle the nature of these costs by employing eye-tracking to provide direct, precise measurements of visual attention allocation during a dual-task paradigm. The experimental design involved 30 participants performing a visual search task (ongoing task) involving arrow arrays of varying difficulty levels, while concurrently maintaining a delayed-recognition PM task involving face and scene images. Eye-tracking data recorded fixations on both the ongoing task stimuli and PM-related stimuli. The researchers analyzed the relationship between fixation patterns (timing, frequency, and duration) and both PM costs and PM accuracy. They categorized probes into no-cost, medium-cost, and high-cost bins to examine how monitoring strategies varied with cognitive load and cost magnitude. Statistical analyses included mixed-effects models and bootstrap permutation tests to assess the predictive power of fixation data compared to PM costs alone. The results revealed that PM costs reflect dissociable monitoring strategies rather than a uniform process. High PM costs were associated with early and frequent monitoring of PM stimuli, whereas low PM costs corresponded to delayed and infrequent monitoring. Furthermore, the relationship between fixations and PM costs varied depending on the cognitive load of the ongoing task. Crucially, the inclusion of eye-tracking fixation data provided significantly better predictions of PM accuracy than PM costs alone. This indicates that the specific nature of monitoring—such as the timing and frequency of fixations—offers more granular insight into prospective remembering than reaction time measures. The significance of this work lies in demonstrating the utility of eye-tracking for dissecting the components of prospective memory. By showing that PM costs are an incomplete metric that conflates distinct strategies, the study challenges the assumption that reaction time slowing is a sufficient indicator of monitoring effort. The findings support a more nuanced view of PM, where individuals dynamically adjust monitoring strategies based on environmental demands. This approach allows for a more precise description of how proactive control is implemented, offering a superior method for understanding the interplay between attention, memory, and task performance in complex cognitive environments.

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• prospective memory interruptions