Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Fall 8-3-2015

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Many factors improve prospective memory performance both inside and outside of the laboratory, including the detailed planning of the situational cue and intended action (i.e., implementation intentions). In the current study, we obtained measures of working memory capacity and laboratory event-based prospective memory performance in college-aged adults. Half of our participants formed an implementation intention in the prospective memory task. Due to evidence that implementation intentions increase the encoding/retrieval efficiency of the prospective memory, it was predicted that forming an implementation intention would serve as a compensatory strategy for those with low working memory ability. Our results supported this hypothesis in that working memory capacity no longer correlated with prospective memory performance when participants employed an implementation intention encoding strategy. These findings suggest that implementation intentions may be an effective way for individuals with low working memory capacity to improve their performance in an attentionaly demanding prospective memory task.

Comments

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Meeks, J. T., Pitães, M., and Brewer, G. A. (2015) The Compensatory Role of Implementation Intentions for Young Adults with Low Working Memory Capacity. Appl. Cognit. Psychol., doi: 10.1002/acp.3151, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.3151. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

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