This article was downloaded by: [116.73.162.

254] On: 11 February 2013, At: 05:30 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Memory
Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pmem20

The importance of cue familiarity and cue distinctiveness in prospective memory

Mark A. McDaniel & Gilles O. Einstein
a b a b

Purdue University, Indiana, USA

Furman University, South Carolina, USA Version of record first published: 25 Sep 2007.

To cite this article: Mark A. McDaniel & Gilles O. Einstein (1993): The importance of cue familiarity and cue distinctiveness in prospective memory, Memory, 1:1, 23-41 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658219308258223

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

MEMORY. 1993. I (I), 23-41

The Importance of Cue Familiarity and Cue Distinctiveness in Prospective Memory

Mark A. McDaniel
Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

Purdue University. Indiana, USA

Gilles 0. Einstein
Furman University, South Carolina, USA
Both retrospective cued-memory tasks and event-based prospective memory tasks require that cue and target information be associated, and that aspects of that association be reinstated for successful remembering. These functional similarities between retrospective memory and prospective memory were the bases for the hypothesis that the familiarity and the distinctiveness of the target event (cue) would influence prospective memory performance. Experiment 1. focusing on target familiarity, found a nominal advantage in prospective memory with unfamiliar target events. Experiment 2 showed a significant benefit for unfamiliar target events, as well as for target events that were distinctive relative to the local context. Additionally, prospective memory perfomance did not reliably correlate with explicit retrospective memory tasks (recall and recognition), but did correlate a s k (word fragment completion). This with an indirect retrospective memory t pattern suggests and helps specify the general view that prospective memory processes may be similar to those involved in both direct and indirect tests of retrospective memory.

INTRODUCTION
Researchers in human memory have recently begun to distinguish between two nominally different memory activities. One involves remembering past events, f a book or the words on a list presented in the laboratory. such as the content o This type of memory, termed retrospective memory, has received extensive empirical and theoretical attention that has produced a voluminous literature.
Requests for reprints should k sent to Mark A. McDaniel. Deputmmt of Psychological Sciences. Purdw University. 1364 Psychology Building Room 3156. West Lafa-, IN 47907-1364, USA. This research was supported by N a t i o n a l Institute of Aging Grant No. AGO8436 to the authors. This paper has benefited from constructive comments by Judy E l l i s . SUM Guhcrcok. and Elizakth Maylor. We are pteful to Christina Beason and A l Jotuwn for developing materials, testing subjects, and sforing the data in Experiments 1 and 2, nspcctively. We also thank Carol Glotzbrh and Julie Smith for help with m a n u s c r i p t prepamtion.
Q 1993 kwrcncc Erlbaum Aosociates Limited

24

McDANlEL AND EINSTEIN

Another memory activity is remembering to do things in the future, such as remembering to give a friend a message, or remembering to take food Out of the oven. In contrast to retrospective memory, this type of memory, termed prospective memory, has received scant attention in the literature. The paucity of research on prospective memory does not, however, reflect its prevalence in everyday memory situations (Maylor, 1990). Many memory situations are prospective (Dobbs & Rule, 1987; Meacham & Leiman, 1982), including those associated with significant health-related activities like remembering to take medication. Progress on prospective memory is beginning to be made on several fronts, however. One problem with investigating prospective memory has been the absence of an accepted experimental paradigm. The initial research involved having subjects return postcards from home (Meacham & Leiman, 1982; Meacham & Singer, 1977), telephone the experimenter (west, 1988). or press a button on a pill box four times daily (Wilkins & Baddeley, 1978). These paradigms have provided the field with groundbreaking descriptive data on prospective memory, but such methods are problematic in terms of experimental manipulation and control. They do not allow strict control or assessment of the behaviours and strategies used by subjects, and it is difficult to gain control over compliance. Subjects for one reason or another may not comply with the instructions (e.g. they happen to be busy or fatigued on that particular day), even though they remember. In response to these concerns, Einstein and McDaniel (1990; see also, Einstein, Holland, McDaniel, & Guynn, 1992) successfully developed a laboratory method for studying prospective memory. In the present study, we use this method to examine the issues described here. Einstein and McDaniel(1990) also distinguished between two general classes of prospective memory tasks. One class, termed time-based, requires that the t an rememberer perform an action at a certain time (e.g. meet somebody a appointed time) or after a period of time has elapsed (e.g. take food out of the oven in 10 minutes). The other class, termed event-based, requires that the rememberer perfonn an action when some external event occurs (e.g. give Mary a message when you see her). This distinction has proved fruitful in understanding age-related differences (or lack thereof) in prospective memory (Einstein, McDaniel, Cunfer, & Guynn, 1991; see also Einstein & McDaniel, 1990), and may be a useful structure within which to develop theoretical accounts of prospective memory. For instance, time-based prospective memory may best be conceptualised as a class of test-wait-test-exit monitoring tasks ( H a r r i s& Wilkins, 1982), whereas event-based prospective memory may be similar in many respects to cued retrospective memory tasks (for convenience of exposition, from hereon we will use prospective memory as shorthand for event-based prospective memory). For example, the retrospective task of remembering that black goes with fruin is similar to the prospective memory task that a particular message has to be given to a friend (i.e. the message has to

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

CUE PROPERTIES AND PROSPECTWE MEMORY

25

be associated with the friend). In both cases, successful remembering requires that the cue and the target information be associated, and further that aspects of that association be reinstated at retrieval. If this analysis has merit, then appeals to the retrospective literature should provide insights into the kinds of variations in the target event (cue) that will influence prospective memory performance. On several theoretical views, the familiarity of an event should affect the degree to which. that event will effectively cue a particular idea. Familiar events have many pre-existing associations, therefore those events should be overloadd as cues (Watkins & Watkins, 1975) or have such an extensive associative fan (Anderson, 1976) that they will be likely to cue information other than @at needed for the task in hand. This irrelevant information may then interfere with the elicitation of the needed association (information about what needs to be done). In contrast, uncommon and unfamiliar events have few pre-existing associations, thereby making it likely that information cued by those events will be relevant for the task at hand. Another dominant theme in the retrospective memory literature is that the encoding of the retrieval cue is an important determinant of its effectiveness (e.g. Tulving & Thomson, 1973). Specifically, a retrieval context that prompts more attention and elaboration of the retrieval cue, may be more likely either to spontaneously elicit associations that reinstate the initial encoding (the initial association between the to-be-performed action and the cue) o r to explicitly induce retrieval of the initial encoding. One such context is one in which the target item differs in some salient way from most of the other items that are presented. In this situation the target item is described as being disrincrive (McDaniel & Einstein, 1986; Schmidt, 1991). and we will continue to use this terminology in describing the retrieval cue when it is presented in such a context. No research exploring the separate influence of the familiarity and the distinctiveness of the target cue on event-based prospective memory has appeared in the literature, though there is some preliminary support for the ideas just sketched. Einstein and McDaniel (1990, Experiment 2) found that prospective memory performance was significantly better for unfamiliar, distinct cue words than for familiar, nondistinct cue words. The present study f work by independently manipulating targetcue familiarity continues this line o and distinctiveness, to allow a more focused and precise examination of how these two factors might influence prospective memory.

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

EXPERIMENT 1
Our initial experiment focused on the effects of cue familiarity while limiting

differences across cues in terms of their distinctiveness. Subjects were instructed to perform some action (press the F20 key on the keyboard) when they

26

McDANiELAND EINSTEIN

encountered a particular word presented in the context of a short-term memory o represent two levels of familiarity: high and task. Target cues were selected t h a t comprised the short-term memory stimulus set in low. The nontarget words t h e prospective memory task was embedded were drawn from these two which t levels of familiarity and were sampled from a range of meaningfulnessvalues as well. Thus, no target item was unusual (distinctive)relative to the stimulus set in which it was presented. Another feature of this experiment was to examine possible links between indirect retrospective memory processes and event-based prospective memory o initiate processes. In both cases, the experimenter does not prompt the subject t a search of episodic memory; instead, in indirect tests, previously encountered information (or the processes recruited to encode the information) is spontaneously activated by the cues provided to the subject, and the same may also hold for at least some prospective remembering. If the so-called priming that is observed in indirect retrospective memory tasks is related to spontaneous or automatic retrieval processes that could underlie prospective memory, then performance on the two tasks might be related. To examine this possibility, we gave subjects a standard indirect memory task (word fragment completion) and correlated performance on that task with prospective memory performance. One final aspect of the experiment arose from possible concerns that the apparent artificiality of our laboratory prospective memory task (e.g. the nonfunctionalnature of pressing the F20 key) may diminish how well it captures real-world prospective memory processes. To address this concern, we also asked subjects to perform a more naturalistic prospective memory task, that of remembering to write the day of the week on their response sheets. A positive correlation between performance on the two tasks would reinforce the idea that our focal event-based task (pressing the F20 key) is representative of a class of prospective memory tasks.

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

Method
Subjects and Design. Subjects were 40 Purdue University undergraduates participating in partial fulfilment of an introductory psychology course requirement. Twenty subjects were assigned to each of two prospective memory cue conditions, a high familiarity and a low familiarity condition. Six additional subjects were tested, but due to computer failure these subjects either were not able to complete the experiment or their data were not recorded. Materials and Procedure. At the outset, subjects were informed that most of the experimental tasks would require a verbal response, but a few tasks required the use of paper. For those tasks requiring paper, subjects were to write the day of the week at the top of every sheet of paper. The experimenter

CUE PROPERTIES AND PROSpEcTlM MEMORY

27

explained that having the day of the week recorded would help keep the data sheets organised while still maintaining the subjects anonymity. For purposes of exposition we will label this the nuturalistic prospective memory task, and simply refer to the task described later as the prospective memory task. Subjects were seated in front of a computer monitor (a CRT) and were told that a major focus of the experiment involved short-term memory for words. To emphasise this task, the instructions indicated that research had shown-that Short-term memory can be improved by using chunking strategies--several such strategies were illustrated with a set of words, and the subjects were told that we were n a short interested in seeing if they could improve their short-term memory i period of time by trying to use these s o r t s of strategies. Subjects also read instructions on the CRT that detailed the characteristics of the short-term memory trials. Specifically, subjects were informed that they would receive first a Prepare for Trial message in the middle of the screen, second, a set of words presented simultaneouslyfor a short period of time, and third, a Recall i m e the words should be recalled orally and in order. The signal, at which t preparation interval was ISsec, the presentation time was equal to 0.75sec per word, and the recall period allowed 1Jsec per word. After reading the instructions, subjects were given three practice trials and were then allowed to review the instructions and practice trials if they wished. The prospective memory task was embedded in this short-term memory procedure. After the short-term memory instructions, subjects were told we have a secondary interest in your ability to remember to do something in the future. They were instructed to press a particular response key on the computer keyboard whenever a particular target event occurred. For the high-familiar cue condition, the target event was BELT for half of the subjects and POST for the other half. For the unfamiliar condition, the target event was MONAD for half of the subjects and BOLE for the other half. Degree of familiarity was determined from the Toglia and Battig (1978) norms, with the high familiar cues having familiarity ratings of 6.24 and the unfamiliar cues having ratings of 1.87 and 1.88, respectively (the rating scale ranged from l l o w familiarity-to 7-high familiarity). Although each subject received only one target word, each target word appeared three times across the 42 short-term memory trials. Subjects were not informed how often the target word would appear across the test trials. Following Einstein and McDaniels (1990) procedure, in order to avoid ceiling performance on the prospective memory task, we included interpolated activities between the prospective memory instructions and the short-term memory trials. Subjects were informed that they would be performing several other tasks before beginning the actual short-term memory trials. Because these tasks were subject paced, for each subject we timed the interval from the start of the first interpolated task until the completion of the last interpolated t a s k .T h e first such task was the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) r a l l y , and their answers were tape vocabulary test. Subjects responded o

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

28

McDANlEL AND EINSTEIN

recorded. Next, subjects were told that we were interested in getting their pleasanmess ratings for a list of words. Subjects viewed a list of 60 words t a time, and, for each word, the subjects entered presented on the CRT one a their rating on the keyboard (the rating scale ranged from 1 t o 5 with 1 indicating very unpleasant and 5 indicating very pleasant). After each rating was entered, the next word in the list appeared. The pleasantness rating task served as the acquisition phase for tyo incidental retrospective memory tests, one an implicit test (word-fragment completion) and the other an explicit test (recognition). In the next paragraphs we describe these materials. For counterbalancing purposes, two word lists were constructed for pleasanmess rating (half of the subjects in each prospective memory condition received each list). Each list was constructed from two sources of words: one source from which suitable fragments were available for implicit memory testing, and the other source from a list that we had previously used for recognition testing. The words f r o m both sources were randomly intermixed during list presentation, and were not noticeably different-they were all familiar concrete nouns. For purposes of exposition, however, each source will be described in turn. One source of words was from the implicit memory research reported by Weldon and Rwdiger (1987, Experiment 2; see also Weldon. 1991). Each acquisition list contained a different set of 30 words from that source. These words served as targets for a single word-fragment completion test that was constructed for use with both acquisition lists. This test was composed of 68 word fragments, with the first eight fragments designed to be easy, so that subjects would not become discouraged. The remaining 60 were fragments for the 30 target words in both of the acquisition lists (the fragments were the same as those used by Weldon). Thus, one set of 30 items served as baseline items and the other 30 served as target items, with the particular acquisition list determining which set served as the baseline and which served as the target. The remaining 30 words for the acquisition lists were selected from materials used by Einstein and McDaniel (1990) in their recognition testing phase of that prospective memory experiment. Each word selected for one of the acquisition lists had a semantically corresponding word on the counterbalanced list. For example one list had the words CROCODILE, SISTER, RUBY, and HAMMER; and the other list had the words ALLIGATOR, BROTHER, EMERALD, and PLIERS. A yes-no recognition test was constructed that listed both sets of words. Thus, the particular words that served as targets and distractors were counterbalanced across the particular acquisition lists. After subjects completed their pleasantness ratings for the acquisition list, they were given the word fragment completion test. Subjects were told that they would be presented with a list of words, with some letters deleted from each word, and they were to try to fill in the deleted letters so as to form an English word. No mention was made that some of the words had appeared on the

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

CUE PROPERTIES AND PROSPECTIVE MEMORY

29

pnceding l i s t . Subjects attention was directed to an example presented on the first page of the four-page booklet of word fragments, and the experimenter and subject worked through the example together. Subjects were then infonned that o r d , and t o use the 15sec to work only they would have 15sec to work on each w t hand. The computer paced the subjects by presenting an audible on the word a beep every 1 5 ~ . t a time was Next, subjects were given the recognition test. One word a presented on the CRT, and subjectsresponded by pressing a keymarked YES if they remembered seeing the word during the pleasantness rating task, and pressing a key marked NO if they did not remember the word appearing during the pleasantness rating task. On completing the recognition test, subjects were told that they would now be presented with the short-term memory trials. No mention was made of the prospective memory test. Subjects saw three new short-term memory practice trials, followed by 42 test trials. The test trials were divided into seven blocks of six trials each, with lOsec rest periods between blocks. The number of words presented on each trial varied from five to seven. The words used for each trial were sampled from a 28-item pool of words selected from clusters 1,6,7, and 8 of Toglia and Battigs (1978) handbook of word norms. Nine of the words . 0 , with M = 1.44). in the pool were rated low on meaningfulness (less than 2 10 were intermediate in terms of rated meaningfulness (between 3.48 and 4.03, with M = 3.82), and 9 were rated relatively highly for meaningfulness (over 5.0, with M = 5.48). On the familiarity dimension, nine of the words were rated low on familiarity and 19 were rated high on familiarity. Across the 42 trials, words were sampled with approximately equal likelihood. The target events (words) occurred on either the second, third, or fourth word within a word set. Also, for half of the subjects the target words appeared in Blocks 1.4, and 6. and for the other subjects the target words appead in Blocks 2 , 5 , and 7. Finally the target words appeared in one of the middle two trials of a block of trials. After the short-term memory trials, subjects were handed a sheet of paper containing several questions on the prospective memory task they had just completed. Subjects were asked to rate the degree to which they thought about pressing the designated key (for the prospective memory task) throughout the experiment. Other questions asked subjects to describe how they remembered to perform the key press task.

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

Results and discussion

Table 1 displays the means for the various memory measures. We calculated single-factor analyses of variance (ANOVA) for each of the retrospective memory measures to confirm that the prospective memory manipulation (type of cue) had no influence on this portion of the experiment. To evaluate recognition

30

McDANlEL AND EINSTEIN

performance, d' scores were computed'. There was no difference on these scores across the two experimental conditions, F( 1,38) = 1.60, p > 0.21 ,MSe = 0.69. For the word-fragment completion task, as expected, the increase in the number of fragments completed when the solution was previously presented (primed), relative to when the solution was not previously presented (baseline), was significant, F( 1,38) = 73.19, p < O.OOO1, MSe = 6.63, and there was no difference in priming due to experimental condition (F < 1). The average elapsed time from the prospective memory instructions until the start of the short-term memory task (in which the p r i m a r y prospective memory task was embedded) was 26.1 min, with no significant differences between the experimental conditions (25.9 and 26.4 for the unfamiliar and familiar cue conditions, respectively; F [1,38] = 1.1 1, p > 0.29, MSe = 2.43). To assess prospective memory performance, the number of correct responses was tabulated. A response was scored as correct if subjects remembered to press the response key sometime between the occurrence of the target event and the end of the block of trials in which it occurred. Inspection of Table 1 shows that the unfamiliar cue produced more c o m t responses than the familiar cue (45% of unfamiliar-cue subjects and 25% of familiar-cue subjects remembered on all three trials, and 45% of unfamiliar-cue subjects and 604% of familiar-cue h r e e trials; the remainder remembered on one or two of subjects forgot on all t the trials). This difference, however, was not significant F(1,38) = 1.29, p > 0.25, MSe = 1.94*. This result seems to suggest that the familiarity of the cue (event) signalling the prospective memory activity has very little effect on prospective remembering. A salient point here is that relative to the Einstein and McDaniel(1990) findings, the performance for the unfamiliar cue condition was lower (0.52 here as opposed to 0.83 in Einstein & McDaniel) implying that the previously reported mnemonic advantage of the unfamiliar cue (Einstein & McDaniel, 1990) might have been due to its distinctivenessfrom the items in the background task. Closer consideration of the present unfamiliar cues suggests an alternative interpretation, however. One of the cue words, BOLE, is a homophone of the familiar word BOWL. To the extent that homophones elicit activation of their alternative forms (Gernsbacher & Faust, 1991). it may be that BOLE functioned more as a high familiar event than as a low familiar event. That is, if BOLE activated the familiar homophonic meanings at retrieval, then these could interfere with activating the prospective memory. Indeed the instructional set for the short-term memory task (chunking strategies like forming sentences were suggested to subjects) could have encouraged the activation of the familiar meanings. Consistent with the possibility, BOLE produced only 37% correct

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

' In computing d', perfect hit rates were assigned a z-score equivalent to 0.99 c m t . and zero false alarms were assigned the z-score for a 0.01 false alarm rate. * The number of comct responses was used to compute the ANOVA.

CUE PROPERTIES AND PROSPEcTlM MEMORY

31

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

responding, w h e m the other cue in the unfamiliar cue condition (MONAD) produced 67% correct responding. Retrospectively. then, using BOLE as an unfamiliar cue may have been an unfortunate choice. Accordingly, in a next o do so more experiment we again manipulated cue familiarity, but attempted t judiciously. Responses to the postcxperimental question asking subjects to estimate (on a 7-point scale, with 1 indicating not at all and 7 indicating all. the time) how much they thought about the primary prospective memory task during the experiment were tabulated for both cue conditions. There were no signifcant o cue condition (2.55 for the unfamiliar cue and 3 . 2 0 for the differences due t familiar cue; F < 1). Post-experimental questioning also revealed that most of the subjects who showed prospective memory forgetting simply did not think of what they were supposed to do when the target word appeared. Only two subjects indicated that they remembered they had to do something when the target word appeared, but had forgotten what it was they were supposed to do. For the naturalistic prospective memory task there were two trials. with the implicit memory response booklet providing one opportunity for writing the day of the week, and the postexperimental questionnaire providing the second opportunity. Subjects remembered to write down the day of the week 15% of the time in the unfamiliartue condition, and 10% of the time in the familiarcue condition (no subject in either condition responded on both trials; 70% of unfamiliartue subjects and 80% of familiarcue subjects forgot to respond on both trials). These means did not differ significantly (F < 1).
Relations Between Prospective and Retrospective Memory. We computed Pearson product-moment correlations to examine the relations among the cued
TABLE 1 Experiment 1.
Dependent Measure Familiar Uqfamiliar

Priming

W o r d previously presented
Nonshldied baseline Recognitionb Rosp#tive memory=

0.17 0.45 0.28 3.25 0.35

0.16 0.37 0.2I

2.92 0.52

Retrospective and prospective memory meuures as a function of cue familiarity in Experiment 1. The priming SCORS reflect the proportion of word fm-6 completed when the solution word was psented minus the poportion completed for nmtudied words. bd.ScOres Roportion of c o m t responses ( t o p~ws the response key).

32

McDANlEL AND EINSTEIN

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

retrospectivememory tasks and the prospective-memory tasks. Consistent with Einstein and McDaniel (1990), recognition was not significantly related to prospective memory performance r(38) = 0.311, p < 0.06, for the focal prospective task and r(38) = 0.146. p > 0.36, for the naturalistic prospective memory task. The marginal significance of the one correlation, however, may suggest closer scrutiny for a possible relation between at least a verbdy-cued prospective memory task and a word-list recognition task.. Einstein and McDaniel used a corrected recognition score for which false alarm rate has little impact when hit rates are relatively high, which may have masked an association between prospective memory and recognition. We delay further speculation on this point until reporting a second experiment that examines the correlation between prospective memory and recognition. Indirect memory performance (priming) was found to be significantly related to prospective memory performance, r(38) = 0.321. p < 0.05, for the focal prospective memory task and r(38) = 0.315, p < 0.05, for the naturalistic prospective memory task. This is the first reported attempt to explore an association between implicit and prospective memory, and this result provides initial support for the idea that the two types of memory tasks may share some common processes. There may have been some leakage on the indirect memory task, however, as it correlated with recognition, r(38) = 0.518, p < 0.001. Importantly, the two prospective memory measures were significantly correlated, r(38) = 0.350, p < 0.05, suggesting that the prospective task that is the focus of our experimental analysis captures aspects of other, more everyday kinds of prospective memory tasks.

EXPERIMENT 2
This experiment built on the insights gained from Experiment 1. Cue familiarity was again manipulated, but care was taken in the unfamiliar-cue condition to select cues that were not homophones of more familiar words. Additionally, another variable was incorporated into the present experiment. If one were to gauge prospective memory performance for the unfamiliar cue condition in Experiment 1 based only on the cue that was not a homophone of a more familiar word (i.e. MONAD), then performance (M = 0.67)would still be somewhat lower than for that same unfamiliar cue (MONAD) used in Einstein and McDaniel (1990, Experiment 2) (M = 0.78). Cross-experimental comparisons must be approached cautiously, but it is possible that the nominal decline in prospective memory performance across the two experiments might be traced to the different constellation of nontarget words used (in the short-term memory task) in the two studies. The larger proportion of unfamiliar nontarget words used in Experiment 1 (relative to the proportion used in Einstein & McDaniel, 1990) would serve to reduce the distinctiveness of the unfamiliar cue relative to the Einstein and McDaniel study. This reinforces the possibility

CUE PROPERTIES AND PROSPECTWE MEMORY

33

mentioned in the Introduction that cue distinctiveness might play a role in prospective memory. To test this possibility more directly, in this experiment we manipulated the familiarity and the distinctiveness of the prospective memory cue. This ' l a t t e r manipulation was accomplished by selecting a majority of nontarget words that were either similar in familiarity (nondistinct condition) or dissimilar in familiarity (distinct condition) to the prospective memory cue.
Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

Method
Subjects and Design. Subjects were 48 introductory psychology students at F m a n University who participated to fulfil a course requirement. In this 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial study, we varied cue familiarity (high, low) and cue distinctiveness (high, low). Twelve subjects were randomly assigned to each of t h e four conditions. Materials and Procedure. The prospective memory task was embcddcd in the same short-term memory task as in Experiment 1. Subjects received the same short-term memory instructions along with three practice trials. Although the short-term memory practice trials contained items not used in the actual test trials, they did contain roughly the same proportions of familiar and unfamiliar items as would appear in the test trials. The prospective memory instructions were also the same as those used in the first experiment, except that subjects were given different cue items. In addition to selecting cue items that were not homophones, we strengthened our methodology by equating the familiar and unfamiliar items for number of letters and syllables. Half of the subjects in the high-familiarity condition were asked to press the response key when the item FUSE occurred, and the other half were asked to press a key when MOVIE occurred. Using the Toglia and Battig (1978) norms, these cues had mean familiarity ratings of 5.23 and 6.25, respectively. In the low-familiarity condition, the cue was SONE (mean familiarity = 2.10) for half the subjects and YOLIF (mean familiarity = 1.38) for the other half. As in the first experiment, we included interpolated activities between the prospective memory instructions and the presentation of the short-term memory test trials-however, the nature of these activities was different. Interpolated activities for the second experiment were closely modelled after those used by Einstein and McDanieI (1990). First, the subjects were given intentional learning instructions concerning a free recall test. They were presented with a 36-item unrelated list, which was generated from familiar items (mean rating above 5.0) that appeared in Clusters 4 8 of the Toglia and Battig (1978) norms. Items were presented one at a time in the centre of the CRT for four seconds each, and the presentation order was randomly determined for each subject. Following presentation, subjects were given four minutes to write down all the items that they could remember. Next, subjects were given intentional learning instructions

34

McDANlELAND EINSTEIN

for a recognition test. This test involved presenting subjects with 56 unrelated familiar items, which were also selected from Cluster 4-8 of the Toglia and Battig norms. These items were presented one at a time in the centre of the computer screen for two seconds each. Next, subjects were given the recognition test, which contained the 56 old items randomly intermixed with 56 new items (selected in the same manner as the target items) and were told to circle the old items. Subjects were given four minutes to perform this task. Altogether, these two interpolated tasks lasted about 15 minutes. Although these h k s were the same as those used by Einstein and McDaniel, it should be noted that the stimulus items were different. Following the interpolated tasks, the short-term memory instructions were summarised and subjects were urged to work on improving their short-term memory capacity. As in the first experiment, subjects were not reminded of the prospective memory task at this point. Subjects were then presented with three new practice trials, followed by 42 test trials, which were divided into seven blocks containing six trials each. There were lOsec rest periods at the end of each block. Each trial ranged in length from five to seven items, and there were two trials of each length in each block. The particular words for each trial were randomly selected from a set of 26 familiar and unfamiliar items, and the particular set that items were chosen from depended on experimental conditions. Initially, using the Toglia and Battig (1978) norms, we selected 21 one- and twosyllable unfamiliar items (with familiarity ratings below 3.0) from Cluster 1, and 21 one- and two-syllable familiar items (with familiarity ratings above 5.0) from Clusters 4-8. Next, five unfamiliar items were randomly selected from the set of 21 unfamiliar items, and added to the 21 familiar items to construct a mostly familiar set of 26 items. Items were randomly selected from this set of mostly familiar items to create the 42 short-term memory test trials for the highfamiliarity, low-distinctiveness condition and the low-familiarity, highdistinctiveness condition. In fact, the short-term memory trials for these two conditions were identical, except for the difference in the target items (FUSE and MOVIE in the former condition, and SON and YOLIF in the latter condition). Five familiar items were randomly selected from the set of 21 familiar items and added to 21 unfamiliar items to construct a set of 26 mostly unfamiliar items. Random selection from this set of mostly unfamiliar items produced 42 shortterm memory test trials for the high-familiarity, highdistinctiveness condition and the low-familiarity, low-distinctiveness condition. The short-term memory trials were identical in these two conditions except for the difference in target n the items (FUSEand MOVIE in the former condition and SONE and YOLIF i latter condition). For all subjects, the target event occurred three times across the 42 trials, and it always appeared as the second, third, or fourth word within a trial. For half of the subjects in each condition, the target items appeared in the fust, fourth, and sixth blocks, and for other subjects, the target items appeared in the second

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

CUE PROPERTlES AND PROSPECTWE MEMORY

35

fifrh. and seventh blocks. One other restriction was that the target event always occurred in one of the middle two trials within a block of trials.

Results and discussion

Table 2 provides the means for the recognition, recall, and prospective memory performances. Two-way between-subjects ANOVAs were performed on the retrospective-memory measures (with the familiarity and distidctiveness of the prospective memory cue as the independent variables). As expected, there was no significant influence of the independent variables on either recognition (d' scores, see footnote 1 on p.30) or recall (see footnote 2 on p.30). For both l lF ' s < 1. measures, a To analyse prospective memory performance, we performed a 2 x 2 ANOVA on the number of times subjects remembered to p s s the response key when the target event occurred. Both the familiarity of the cue and the distinctiveness of the cue signifcantly affected prospective memory, F(1.44) = 21.27, p < 0.001, and F(1.44) = 11.15, p < 0.005. respectively, with MSe = 0.092. In general, unfamiliar cues produced better performance than familiar cues, and distinctive cues produced better performance than nondistinctive cues. In addition, these two factors significantly interacted such that the benefit of unfamiliarity and distinctiveness combined was not substantially greater than one of the two alone, F(1.44) = 4.27. p < 0.05, MSe = 0.092. This interaction, however, cannot be given much weight because performance for the unfamiliar distinctive condition was at ceiling, thereby preventing the emergence of possible additive effects of those two variables. Nevertheless, the results clearly support the conclusion that both the familiarity and distinctiveness of the prospective memoryenabling event are important factors in determining prospective memory performance. Although there was a good deal of variability across subjects, most subjects either remembered to perform the prospective memory task on all three trials, or forgot on all three trials. Due to their perfect performance, all subjects in the unfamiliar distinctive condition remembered on all three trials. The percentages of subjects who remembered to perform the prospective memory task on 3,2, 1 and 0 trials were: 67,33,0, and 0 for the unfamiliar nondistinctive condition; 67, 8, 17, and 8 for the familiar distinctive condition; and 25, 8, 0, and 67 for the familiar nondistinctive condition, respectively.
Relations Between Prospective and Retrospective Memory. Correlations between prospective memory performance, and recognition and recall were computed separately for each experimental condition. This procedure was followed to avoid having the effects of the independent variables on prospective memory (but not retrospective memory) mask possible associations between the different memory measures. Correlations for the unfamiliar distinctive cue condition could not be computed, because of the perfect prospective memory

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

36

McDANlEL AND EINSTEIN

TABLE 2 Experiment 2.
Nondistinctive Familiar Unfamiliar
DiStinCtiW

Depe&nr

Measure

Familiar

Ut#amiliar

Rdl'
R e c o g n i t i o n b Respective memoTys

0.34

2 . 0 0 0 . 31

0 . 3 9 2.02 0 . 8 9

0 . 3 9 1.81 0 . 7 8

0 . 4 0 1.97 1 .oo
~~

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

Reaospective and prospective memory measures as a funaion of cue distinctivenessand familiarity i n Experiment 2 . pbability of mall. d' scorcs proportion o f correct mponscs.

performance in this condition. For the other conditions, consistent with Experiment 1, there were no significant correlations between prospective memory and the d' measure of recognition (correlations ranged from 0.01 1, p = 0.97 to 0.134, p = 0.68; for all correlations reported d f = 10). Similarly, there were no reliable correlations between prospective memory and recall (correlations ranged from -0.018, p = 0.96 to 0.438, p = 0.16). In contrast, there were two significant correlations between recognition and recall (0.68 1, p = 0.02, and 0.643, p = 0.02) and the remaining correlations were in the same direction (0.502, p = 0.10, and 0.204, p = 0.52). These results, using different materials, are entirely consistent with previous reports of associations between recogmtion and recall (e.g. Einstein & McDaniel, 1990; Underwood, Boruch, & Malmi, 1978). and no correlation between prospective memory and explicit retrospective memory (e.g. Einstein & McDaniel, 1990).

GENERAL DISCUSSION
The present work was motivated by a componential analysis of prospective memory described by Einstein and McDaniel (1990). On this analysis, one component of prospective memory is that the individual must remember what has to be done, which would include remembering the action to be performed and the proper target event. This might be termed the retrospective component of a prospective memory task. The other component is that the individual must remember to perform the action in response to the appropriate target event (or at the appropriate time in the case of a time-based prospective memory task), Unlike a retrospective memory task in which some agent (e.g. an experimenter) prompts the rememberer to try to recall or recognise target information, a prospective task requires the subject to self-initiate, or spontaneously accomplish, recognition of the event (or time) as the stimulus for producing a response. For a prospective memory task that makes minimal demands on the retrospective component (e.g. remembering a simple task associated with one

CUE PROPERTIES AND PROSPECTIVE MEMORY

37

target event), t h e critical factor determining prospective memory performance r evokes the memory seems to be the degm to which the target event triggers o (Einstein & McDaniel, 1990). From this for the action that is to be perfview, prospective memory performance will depend on properties of the prospective memory target event. The current results support this general analysis, as prospective memory performance was significantly affected by characteristics of the target events. h e first to clearly delineate padcular aspects of More importantly this study is t the target event that are influential in supporting successful prospective memory performance. As mentioned in the Introduction, most of the research on prospective memory has provided foundational descriptive data, but has not allowed analysis of the factors underlying prospective memory. One previous experiment demonstrated that an unfamiliar target presented in the context of familiar items significantly enhanced prospective memory (Einstein & McDaniel, 1990), but left uncertain whether target familiarity, the distinctiveness of the target relative to the local context in which it appeared, or both were responsible for the effects on prospective memory. Experiment 2 disentangled these two factors and clearly indicated that the familiarity of the target event and the local distinctiveness of the target event each has a significant influence on prospective memory. The pattern of the familiarity and distinctiveness effects is, at least on the surface, similar to the effects of familiarity and distinctiveness on explicit retrospective memory tests. Better prospective memory performance when unfamiliar cues are used parallels the standard fmding that recognition performance is better for low-frequency or rare items relative to frequentlyoccurring items (Kausler, 1974; Shepard, 1%7). Better prospective memory performance for distinctive cues paralleis the finding that distinctive cues h e extent to facilitate recall more than nondistinctive cues (Hunt, 1991). T which these parallels imply that unfamiliar and distinctive cues benefit prospective memory for the same reasons that they benefit retrospective memory cannot be unambiguously determined from the current study. Nevertheless, given the paucity of theory in the area, we believe there is heuristic value in outlining some of the theoretical possibilities stimulated by the present results. Consider first the cue-distinctiveness manipulation. In retrospective cued recall, a distinctive cue has typically been viewed as a cue that allows more precise or unique specification of the to-be-remembered event (Hunt, 1991; Mantyla & Nilsson, 1988). In the present study, the prospective memory cues were not distinctive in this sense. Distinctiveness was not a function of the particular cue, but instead was defined in terms of the background list in which a particular cue was presented. This situation parallels the paradigms in which the encoding of a to-be-remembered target is apparently influenced by embedding that target in a list of dissimilar vs similar items. Thus, the present

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

38

McDANlELAND ElNSTrlN

distinctiveness result would appear to be due to variation in encoding of the cue, and, mort particularly, it seems plausible that the increased attention or s thought to be associated with distinct presentations (see orienting that i Schmidt, 1991) would be helpful in a l e h g the rememberer that some action must be taken. The familiarity manipulation of the prospective-memory cue more directly parallels the manipulation of familiarity in the retrospective literature. Yet a recognition task requires subjects to judge explicitly whether or not the recognition probe was encountered in the prior specified context. Unfamiliar targets are better recognised presumably because it is easier to discriminate, access, or recollect the appropriate contextual-target associations or tags for, a target that has appeared in few prior contexts than for a target that has appeared in many prior contexts (cf. Anderson & Bower, 1972). In the prospective memory situation, however, controlled processing is not necessarily directed at trying to recover the prior appearances (previous encoding contexts) of the enabling event (i.e. the target). Thus, to the extent that word-familiarity (frequency) effects in recognition are due to a controlled recollection process (such as that which appears to underlie the effects of attention; Jacoby, 1991), then the mechanisms involved in the familiarity effects for prospective memory and recognition may be different. It is possible, though, that familiarity effects in recognition are mediated, at least in part, by more automatic components (cf. Jacoby. 1991; Mandler, 1980). If so, then these components may well be involved in prospective memory. There are at least two models for how these putative automatic processes may function to influence prospective memory. Previously presented unfamiliar targets may be more prone to automatically elicit feelings of acquaintance or knowing (which in a recognition task would form one basis for the recognition decision) that cause the enabling event (target) to be noticed. This noticing is then used to stimulate a controlled, conscious probe of memory to determine what it is the target might signify (cf. Mandlers analysis of context-free recognition). A related but not identical approach is that presentation of any stimulus item always produces activation of that items node in an associative network (e.g. Anderson, 1976; 1983). Activation then passively spreads to associated items, thereby increasing the resting activation levels of those associated items. A critical assumption in this model is that the amount of activation for any particular associated item is a negative function of the number of associations emanating from the presented target (i.e. the fan of associations). Accordingly, because an unfamiliar item would have less fan, then there would be a higher probability that the to-be-performed action associated with it in memory would be sufficiently activated to exceed the threshold necessary to bring the action into awareness. In sum, there are a number of interpretations of the present findings that can be derived from existing theories of memory, and in principle these alternatives could be distinguished in future research.

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

CUE PROPERTIES AND PROSPECTIVE MEMORY

39

The correlational results involving the prospective memory and retrospective memory measures must be interpreted cautiously, because of the mtricted number of prospective memory observations (tests) relative to the retrospective memory tests, and because of the modest correlational values obtained. Nevertheless, the pattern is somewhat in line with the claim made throughout that an important difference between prospective and retrospective memory rests on the presence/absence of explicit prompting for rememberiqg. Specifically, there were no significant correlations between recognition (where remembering is prompted by the experimenter) and prospective memory (Experiments 1 and 2), and between recall (prompted remembering) and prospective memory (Experiment 2). In contrast, in Experiment 1 performance on an indirect test of retrospective memory was significantly comlated with performance on both of the prospective memory tasks examined. This positive correlation may be capturing the underlying commonality (for prospective memory and indirect o attempt retrospective tests) that the experimenter does not prompt the subject t to remember a prior encoding episode. In sum, the experimental and correlational results taken together suggest that prqspective memory shares similarities with both direct and indirect tests of o t manifesting identical retrospective memory, while at the same time n properties. This conclusion fits well with the recent theoretical position that direct and indirect retrospective tests are not process pure (Jacoby & Kelley, 1991). That is, each test is not mediated completely by one kind of processing; instead direct and indirect tests are influenced by similar kinds of processes, albeit operating in differential combination. By the same token, we assume that a prospective memory task is mediated by a combination of processes like those found in other memory tasks, but reveals these processes in somewhat different interplay than is present in the memory tasks traditionally investigated. This approach allows a more analytic consideration of similarities and differences between prospective memory and retrospective memory than do existing claims that prospective memory and retrospective memory are two distinct forms of memory (cf. Kvavilashvili, 1987; Maylor, 1990).
Manuscript renived 12 August 1992 Manuscript accepted 15 Sepamba 1992

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

REFERENCES
An rson. J.R. (1976). Language. memory, and rhoughr. Hillsdale. Associates Inc.

NJ: Lawrence Erlbaurn

Anderson. J.R. (1983). The archirecwe o f cognirion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University PRSS. Anderson, J.R.. & Bower. G . H . (1972). Recognition and ntricvd procsses in h e reull. Psychological Review,79.97-1 23. Dobbs, A.R., & Rule, B.G. (1987). ~ V C and df-rrponS of m w obilitia in older adults. Canadian /ournal o f Psychology. 41.209-222.

40

McDANlELAND EINSTEIN

Einstein. (3.0..H o U U . . McD.niei. M A . & G u y n ~ MJ. (1992). Age-relued deficits in posptCtive mmory: The influence of task campkxity. P s y c h b g y ond Aging, 7.471-478. Einstein, G . O . . & McD.niCl. MA. ( 1 9 9 0 ) . Normal aging and prospective memory. Jounal of Experimental Psychology: Lcamhg. Memoty, and Cognition, 16,717-726. Einstein. G.O.. McWiI. MA., Cunfer, AX., & Guynn. MJ. ( 1 9 9 1 ) . Aging and prospective memory: Erondning the i@uences of s e ! f i n i t i a t e d rem*evaI proccssrs and mind wandering. Unpublished manuscript, F u m w University. Greenvilk. SC. Gemsbachcr, M . A . , & Faust, ME ( 1 9 9 1 ) . The medrpnum ' of supprrsSian: A compancnt of general comprrhension skill. Journal c$Experimental Psychology: borning. Mewmy dnd Cognition. 17. 245-262. Harris, J.E., & Willtins. AJ. ( 1 9 8 2 ) . Rananbering t o do thiigs: A theoretical mmework and an illustnttive experiment Humun Learning, 1. 123-136. H u n t , R.R. (1991). The relative cffccriwnrss o f relational and distinctive cue environments. Unpublished manuscript, Univmity of N o r t h C a r o i i Greensboro, NC. Jacoby, L.L (1991). A process dissociation f m n e w d sepusting automatic f r o m intentional uses of memory. Journal of Menwry and Lunguage, 30.513-541. Jamby. L . L . , & Kelley, C. (1991). Unconscious influences of memory: Dissociations and autamatacity. In D. Milner & M. Rugg (Eds.). The neuropsychology of consciousness (~p.201-233). London:Academic Ress. Kauskr, D . H .( 1 9 7 4 ) . Psychology of verbal learning and menmy. New Ycnk Academic Ress. Kvavilashvili, L ( 1 9 8 7 ) . Remembering intention as a distinct form of memory. Brifish Jwrnal o f Psychology, 78,507-518. M d l e r . G. ( 1 9 8 0 ) . Recognizing: The judgment of p v i O u J occumnce. Psychological Review, 87, 252-271. Mantyla. T., & NiLcson. L.G. ( 1 9 8 8 ) .C U ~ distinctiv~e and ~ f-ning: E f f e c t i v ~ mO ~ f selfgenerated mtrieval cues in delayed d l . Journal of Eaperimentol Psychology: burning, Memory, and Cognition, 14. 502-509. Maylor, E . A . (1990).A p and prospective memory. The Quarterly JOWMI of Eaperimental Psychology. 42A. 471493. McDaniel. M.A., & Einstein, G . O .( 1 9 8 6 ) . Biuun imagev a s an effective mnemonic aid The imporunce of distinctiveness. Jwrnol of Expcrtnental Psychology: Learning. Memory, and Cognition. 12.54-65. Meacham, J.A., & Leiman. B. (1982). Remembering to perform fume actions. In U. Neisser (Ed.). Memory observed: Remembering in M W ~ Icontexts ( p p . 3 2 7 3 3 6 ) . San Francisco: Fmmnn. Meacham, J.A.. & Singer, J. (1977). Incentive effects in prospective -bering. The J o u r ~ o lf P ~ c h o l o97. ~ . 191-197. Schmidt, S.R. (1991).Can we have a distinctive theory of memory? Memory & Cognition. 19,523542. Shepard, R.N. (1967).Recognition memory for words, sentences, and pictures. Journal o f Verbal Ltarning and Verbal Behavior, 6. 156-163. Toglia, M.P.. & Battig, W.F. (1978).Handhook o f semantic word norms. Hillsdale. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. Tulving. E., & Thomson, D.M. (1973).Encoding specificity and retrieval p r o c t s ~ e sin episodic memory. Psychological Review, 80, 352-373. Underwood. BJ., Boruch, R.F., & Malmi. R.A. (1978).Composition of episodic memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 107,393419. Watkins, O.C.. & Wukins. MJ. (1975). Buildup of proactive inhibition as a cue overload effect. Journal of Eaperimental Psychology: Human burning and Memory. I&, 442-452. f Erpcrinwntal Weldon. M.S. (1991).Mechanisms underlying priming on pmepcual tests. Journai o Psychology: Laming. Memory, and Cognition. 17.526-541.

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013

CUE PROPERTIES AND PROSPECTWE MEMORY

41

Weldon. M . S . . & Radiger, H U . (1987). Altering retrieval &mands versus the picture superiority effect. Memory & Cognition, IS. 269-280. West, R L (1988). Prospeaivc memory and aging. In M.M. G m b n g . P.E. M o r r i s .& RN.Sykes ( E d s . ) , Pructicul uspects of Current reseurch und issues (Vol. 2, pp.119-125). Qlichcsttr, UK: John Wiley. Willrim. AJ., & Baddeley. A.D. (1978). Remembering t o d l in everyday life: An approach t o abscntmindedncss. In M.M. Gmbcrg. P . E .M o r r i s ,& RH. Sykcs (Eds.). Prucricul uspecrs of memory ( p p . 2 7 3 4 ) .London: Academic Prcss.

Downloaded by [116.73.162.254] at 05:30 11 February 2013