The recognition-recall hypothesis of event-based prospective memory
Abstract
Prospective memory involves remembering to do something in the future (i.e., remembering to give a friend a message). The present set of experiments was conducted to evaluate the recognition-recall hypothesis of event-based prospective memory. According to this hypothesis, prospective memory success depends on two phases in which different mnemonic mechanisms are operating. In the first phase, the subject must recognize that the event is a signal that something is to be done. This component is called the intention component and is presumed to be an analog to retrospective recognition memory. Once the subject recognizes the event as significant then he/she precedes to the second phase in which he/she must recall the to-be-performed task. This component is called the content component and is presumed to be an analog to retrospective recall memory. In order to determine if the mechanisms operating in the intention and content components are like those underlying recognition and recall, two variables known to dissociate recognition and recall were used (Experiments 1 and 2). In Experiment 1, the effects of word frequency were found to dissociate the intention and content components of a prospective memory task in the same manner that would have been predicted based on the retrospective memory domain. The list strength effect was employed in Experiment 2. The list strength manipulation did dissociate the two components but it may not have occurred for the reasons predicted by the recognition-recall hypothesis. Experiment 3 attempted to demonstrate that these components do not always dissociate. The generation effect was found to exhibit the same pattern of results for the components of a prospective memory task that would have been predicted based on the retrospective memory domain. In general, the combined results of this study tend to support the recognition-recall hypothesis of event-based prospective memory.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
McDaniel, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Psychology|Experiments
Off-Campus Purdue Users:
To access this dissertation, please log in to our
proxy server.