Cognitive Processes of Time-Based Prospective Memory

Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to remember to carry out a planned action at a specific moment in the future, which is often defined time-based, such as taking a pizza out of the oven after 10 minutes. Research suggests that both general cognitive abilities and task-specific strategies contribute to time-based PM performance. I will present data from three experiments examining how working memory (WM) processes interact with task-specific strategies in PM. In Experiment 1, we found that higher WM load increased the influence of time monitoring on PM performance. Experiment 2 showed that WM updating, in addition to time monitoring, was linked to PM performance. In Experiment 3, higher updating demands impaired PM performance, but this effect disappeared after accounting for time monitoring. These findings highlight the complex relationship between cognitive abilities and task-specific strategies in time-based PM.

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