Hicks, J. L., Cook, G. I., & Marsh, R. L. (2005). Detecting event-based prospective memory cues occurring within and outside the focus of attention. American Journal of Psychology, 118, 1 – 11.
Despite being a fast growing area of research, studies of prospective memory have failed to examine effects on prospective cues that occur outside the focus of attention. Since most of the past research of prospective memory has included the cue as part of the ongoing task, and since the ongoing task seems to hinder prospective memory when the task focuses on features of a cue not associated with the delayed intention, a cue outside of the focus of attention may lead to lower prospective remembering.
The goal of the current research was to present prospective cues both inside and outside the focus of attention, and perform a similar manipulation to both cues to examine any difference between the effects of this manipulation on both types of cue.
Two predictions were made, based on this manipulation. First, manipulation of the cues that fall outside the focus of attention may show no effect, as these cues may not be fully processed. Alternatively, based on the multiprocess view of Einstein, McDaniel and colleagues, the manipulation may have a much greater effect on the cues falling outside the focus of attention than for those cues falling in the focus of attention since the latter should take little or no attentional processing resources to detect.
Method
Two experiment of similar design were conducted. For both experiments, participants were presented with a collection of 210 word or pronounceable nonword items. These items served as the stimuli for the lexical decision task that served as the ongoing task. The items were presented in either a large or small font (between subjects), in one of seven colors. Additionally, each item presentation included a border around the stimulus. These borders were presented in a large or small format (between subjects), in one of the sevens colors used for items. Borders presented in the color red served as the prospective cues in Experiment 1, while word/nonword items presented in red served as the prospective cues in Experiment 2.
Results (Table 1)
Experiment 1
Participants in the large border condition showed a higher prospective memory hit rate than those participants in the small border condition. There was no effect of font size of the word/nonword items.
Experiment 2
No main effect of font size or border size was found.
Discussion
The results suggest two main points. First, prospective memory cues located within the focus of attention may not be affected by manipulations of their characteristics. Second, cues located outside of focal attention can be manipulated so that attention will be drawn to the feature for detection.
Finally the authors discuss the theoretical ramifications of their findings, suggesting that limitations other than those of resources may be at work. The authors suggest that amount or quality of data can also limit processing, and should be included in future considerations of hindrance to prospective memory.
Important Legal
Disclaimer: The preceding are articles we read together in the Lampinen Lab Fall 2005 false memory reading group. By
clicking on the button next to the article you can see the summary of that
article. The summary was prepared by the student presenting that article and it
is of course the case that the views expressed in the summary do not
necessarily represent the views of the reading group as a whole, Dr. Lampinen, the Lampinen Lab,
Hugo's, the University of Arkansas, the Razorback Football or Basketball teams
(although we're not sure about cross country), people living down the street
from us, Bob Dylan, Jack Fate, our extended families, or anyone else for that
matter except for the student who wrote the summary (and they don't necessarily
believe what they wrote either).