title: Individual differences in the delayed execution of prospective memories.
abstract: Working memory processes play a critical role in actively maintaining, rehearsing, and retrieving goal-relevant information during cognitively engaging tasks. In the current study, we examined individual differences in prospective memory between young adults with high versus low working memory capacity (WMC) when they had to momentarily delay their intentions for either 6 or 42 s. In Experiments 1 and 2, high-WMC individuals performed significantly better at both delay intervals than did low-WMC individuals under standard ongoing task conditions. In Experiment 2, we included an interrupting task during the longer delay that decreased performance in the low-WMC relative to the high-WMC individuals. These results suggest that prospective memory performance is generally impaired across all retention intervals in low-WMC individuals, and that high-WMC individuals may be better able to retrieve the intention from long-term memory even when attention is interrupted by intervening activities.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Arizona State University , Tempe , AZ , USA.
authors.forename: B Hunter
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Ball
authors.forename: Justin B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Knight
authors.forename: Michael R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Dewitt
authors.forename: Gene A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Brewer
mesh_terms: D032882:Comprehension; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*