Commission errors of active intentions: the roles of aging, cognitive load, and practice

The role of cue salience in prospective memory commission errors in nonperformed nonfocal tasks

Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to remember to execute an intention in the future without having a permanent reminder. These intentions can be performed when they are not relevant or become no-longer needed, the so-called "commission errors". The present study aims to understand the effect of cue salience on PM commission errors with unperformed intentions and on the ongoing task performance-associated costs. Through a between-subjects design, eighty-one participants were assigned to 3 conditions: the no-PM condition, which served as control, and the salient and nonsalient conditions, which were asked to perform a lexical decision task and an incomplete nonfocal prospective memory task (i.e. no PM cues were presented). Subsequently, participants were instructed to no longer execute the prospective intention. In the second phase, a lexical decision task occurred again, including irrelevant PM cues, which should not be answered as such. In the salient condition, cues were salient (i.e. presented in red or blue background). In contrast, in the nonsalient condition, PM cues appeared on a black background, as any other stimuli. In the no-PM control condition, participants only performed an LDT. A commission error occurred when the (irrelevant) intention was performed in this second phase. Results showed that more participants performed a commission error in the presence of salient cues, even when PM intentions became irrelevant. Additionally, when cues were not salient, participants took longer to answer the LDT, as reasoned by the spontaneous retrieval theory. These findings are discussed according to the dual-mechanism account.

Moving forward: Exploring the role of interference on prospective memory deactivation

Recent prospective memory (PM) studies have shown that an intention may be erroneously executed despite no-longer-needed (i.e., commission errors), especially under demanding ongoing activities. In the current study, we examined whether PM deactivation benefits from a retroactive interference mechanism. For this, we set up a procedure in which participants are first asked to perform a PM task which is critically declared finished afterwards. Next, they encoded a new and dissimilar PM intention to accomplish later (Experiment 1) or performed filler tasks with increased working memory difficulty levels (Experiment 2). Lastly, all participants encountered several (but irrelevant) PM cues. Together, our findings provide evidence that the efficiency of the deactivation process can be modulated by encoding novel and dissimilar PM tasks and by the type of processing after intention completion. These findings are discussed in terms of strategic or spontaneous retrieval processes and linked to a retroactive interference mechanism which helps to overwrite or deteriorate the old-PM task representation.

From retrospective to prospective memory research: a framework for investigating the deactivation of intentions

The definition of episodic memory has evolved into a multifaceted concept that gathered great attention in several research areas in psychology and neuroscience. Prospective memory (PM), or the ability to remember to perform delayed intentions at a later moment in the future, represents one side of this capacity for which that has been a growing interest. In this review, we examined a counterintuitive finding: PM intentions may persist and affect our behaviour despite successful goal attainment and task completion, which in daily life may be as serious as taking medication twice. This review aims to elucidate the existing knowledge and identify some unresolved questions concerning this specific memory failure. Therefore, this review provides an overview of the uprising research dedicated to both PM omission and commission errors, including an analysis of its definitions, of the current theoretical approaches of PM retrieval, and the main procedures used in this field to offer an integrative perspective on this topic. Finally, the last section is devoted to discussing future directions to test the predictions of our suggested theoretical explanations for PM deactivation. This might be an avenue for research that is likely to extend our understanding of episodic memory's usefulness in everyday life.

How Does Performing Demanding Activities Influence Prospective Memory? A Systematic Review

This paper is the first systematic review on the role of ongoing task load in prospective remembering, which was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA). Forty articles published between 1995 and 2020 were included. They evaluated prospective memory (PM) performance (i.e., the ability to remember to execute a delayed intention) in adult samples aged between 19 and 50 years old when the PM cue appeared under cognitively demanding conditions. The results revealed that people are more likely to fail to remember to perform a delayed intention at the appropriate circumstances or time in the future when their cognitive resources are taxed by demanding ongoing activities. We conclude the review by highlighting that the degree of working memory and executive resources seems to account for some of the discrepant findings and by proposing directions for future research.

Aftereffects and deactivation of completed prospective memory intentions: A systematic review

Prospective memory, the ability to perform an intended action in the future, is an essential aspect of goal-directed behavior. Intentions influence our behavior and shape the way we process and interact with our environment. One important question for research on prospective memory and goal-directed behavior is whether this influence stops after the intention has been completed successfully. Are intention representations deactivated from memory after their completion, and if so, how? Here, we systematically review 20 years of research on intention deactivation and so-called aftereffects of completed intentions across different research fields to offer an integrative perspective on this topic. We first introduce the currently dominant accounts of aftereffects (inhibition vs. retrieval) and illustrate the paradigms, findings, and interpretations that these accounts developed from. We then review the evidence for each account based on the extant research in these paradigms. While early studies proposed a rapid deactivation or even inhibition of completed intentions, more recent studies mostly suggested that intentions continue to be retrieved even after completion and interfere with subsequent performance. Although these accounts of aftereffects seem mutually exclusive, we will show that they might be two sides of the same coin. That is, intention deactivation and the occurrence of aftereffects are modulated by a multitude of factors that either foster a rapid deactivation or lead to continued retrieval of completed intentions. Lastly, we outline future directions and novel experimental procedures for research on mechanisms and modulators of intention deactivation and discuss practical implications of our findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

When we must forget: the effect of cognitive load on prospective memory commission errors

Recent studies consistently show that prospective memory (PM) intentions are not always deactivated when no-longer needed and might be erroneously performed upon encountering the once relevant cue - termed PM commission errors. However, empirical evidence on the potential mechanisms that might lead to this kind of memory failure remains mostly unexplored. This study aimed to investigate the influence of the ongoing task demands on PM deactivation of non-performed intentions. Younger adults, except for those in the no-PM condition, were asked to perform a PM task and were then told that the intention was finished. Later, they perform a lexical decision task with some trials containing (irrelevant) PM cues while simultaneously carrying out a counting recall task with two levels of difficulty. The results showed a higher risk of PM commission errors under moderate cognitive load (74%) as compared to the no-load condition (40%). Results also show that commission error risk did not increase in the high-load (54%) compared with the moderate-load condition. Furthermore, comparisons of the ongoign task performance between the no-PM condition and the other conditions with a PM task requirement support that commission errors might arise from a spontaneous PM retrieval. The implications of these findings are discussed within the dual-mechanisms account.

Structural correlates of commission errors in prospective memory

Prospective memory refers to remembering to perform an intended future action, such as remembering to take medication with breakfast. Historically, the field has focused on failures to initially remember a prospective memory task (omission errors), but interestingly, individuals will occasionally repeat a prospective memory action after it has been completed (e.g., double dosing). These failures in prospective memory deactivation/forgetting are termed commission errors. The current registered study investigated structural neuroimaging correlates of a laboratory measure of commission errors in 47 healthy older adults. Extant theories differed in their predicted outcomes: commission error risk was predicted to be highest in individuals with smaller medial temporal lobe volume (output monitoring theory), larger lateral prefrontal cortex volume (residual activation theory), or a combination of larger medial temporal lobe volume and smaller lateral prefrontal cortex volume (dual mechanisms theory). In registered analyses, we found that a higher number of commission errors was associated with larger medial temporal lobe/hippocampal grey matter volume (supporting dual mechanisms theory), but not with grey or white matter volume in the lateral parietal lobe, frontal pole, or a composite of ventrolateral/dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (not supporting dual mechanisms theory). In post hoc analyses, smaller volume in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex was associated with a higher number of commission errors, possibly indicating that the dual mechanisms theory of PFC control was conceptually correct, but that a different PFC subregion than anticipated exerts control over commission errors. Collectively, the registered and post hoc analysis findings showed a functional dissociation across MTL/PFC regions that was more consistent with the dual mechanisms theory than the alternative theories.

The Practice Effect on Time-Based Prospective Memory: The Influences of Ongoing Task Difficulty and Delay

The practice effect on prospective memory refers to the phenomenon that prospective memory performance can improve with behavior training. Some studies have found that event-based prospective memory (EBPM) can benefit from practice. However, only a few studies have focused on the practice effect on time-based prospective memory (TBPM). In the present study, we planned to explore whether the practice effect on TBPM existed and what its processing mechanism was. In Experiment 1, we tested whether the practice effect existed at all under different background task conditions. The results showed that the practice effect existed only under an easy ongoing task condition. When a 600 ms delay was added after each difficult ongoing task in Experiment 2, we found the same effect as for the easy ongoing task condition in Experiment 1. In addition, the results also suggested that the practice effect was closely related to the improvement in the effectiveness of time monitoring. The present study confirmed the existence of practice effect of TBPM under some conditions of sufficient attention resources and further explored its causes for the first time, which made us have a deeper understanding of the plasticity of TBPM caused by behavior training.

Commission errors with forced response lag

It is often necessary to retrieve intentions once a certain cue occurs in the environment. However, such prospective memory (PM) tasks can also be erroneously recalled even though they are no longer relevant and may result in commission errors. According to the dual mechanism account, commission errors occur because the intention is spontaneously retrieved, and there is a subsequent failure to suppress the associated action, resulting in erroneous instant execution. In three experiments, we tested whether failed response suppression is a prerequisite for commission errors. We set up a response lag condition in which participants had to delay their response to ongoing task trials for 1 s (Experiment 1) or 2 s (Experiments 2 and 3) and a pause condition in which the delay occurred between ongoing task trials. In both conditions, participants learned about a PM task and were then told that the PM task was cancelled. In addition, a control group with response lag executed the PM task and was subsequently told the task was finished. Later, all participants encountered several irrelevant PM cues. If failed response suppression is a prerequisite for commission errors, commission error rates should be non-existent in the response lag conditions, because participants had designated time to suppress the PM action. However, commission errors occurred at an equal rate in all lag and pause conditions. Due to this contradiction to the dual mechanism account, we suggest that the process for commission error occurrence should be reconsidered. Because commission errors appear not to be caused by failed response suppression, we discuss the idea that erroneous intentions might be formed when encountering the former PM cue and persist over delays between formation and execution.

Aging and the strategic use of context to control prospective memory monitoring

Monitoring the environment for the occurrence of prospective memory (PM) targets is a resource-demanding process that produces cost to ongoing activities. The current study investigated younger and older adults' ability to monitor strategically, which involves the heightening and relaxation of monitoring when it is contextually appropriate thereby affording conservation of limited-capacity attentional resources. Participants performed a lexical-decision task in which words or nonwords were presented in upper or lower locations of the screen. The specific condition was correctly informed that PM targets ("tor" syllable) would occur only in word trials (simple cue; Experiment 1), in word trials in the upper location (complex cue; Experiments 2 and 3A), or in red trials in the upper location (complex cue; Experiment 3B), whereas the nonspecific condition was told that targets could appear in any context. The results showed that older adults generally exhibited similar monitoring patterns as younger adults. When context varied randomly on each trial, younger and older adults in the specific condition utilized simple (Experiment 1) but not complex (Experiment 2) contextual cues to reduce monitoring in unexpected contexts relative to the nonspecific condition. Notably, younger but not older adults were able to use the location dimension of the complex cue to reduce monitoring in unexpected (lower) contexts. When context varied more predictably (i.e., changed every eight trials), both younger and older adults were able to monitor strategically in response to the complex contextual cue (Experiments 3A and 3B). Together these findings suggest that context-sensitive PM monitoring processes generally remain intact with increased age. (PsycINFO Database Record

Negative Prospective Memory in Alzheimer's Disease: "Do Not Perform That Action"

Relatively to "standard" prospective memory, i.e., remembering to perform a future action, little is known about negative prospective memory, i.e., remembering not to perform a future action. This study investigated the latter ability in Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD participants and healthy older adults were asked to click on the keyboard or not to click on it when a cue word was encountered. Results showed more omissions (i.e., forgetting to click the keyboard when the instruction was to do so) in AD participants than in healthy older adults, suggesting a prospective memory deficit. Interestingly, more commissions (i.e., clicking the keyboard when the instruction was not to do so) were also observed in AD participants than in healthy older adults. Similar levels of commissions and omissions were observed in AD participants and in healthy older adults. Also, commissions and omissions were correlated with performance on an inhibition assessment task. Our findings reveal that AD is characterized by not only difficulty in the retrieval of recent information, but also difficulty to inhibit no-longer appropriate stimulus-response associations previously learned, suggesting a specific deficit of negative prospective memory in AD.