Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2023 Nov;76(11):2546-2569. doi: 10.1177/17470218231161015. Epub 2023 Apr 3.
Monitoring the environment for target events that trigger prospective memory (PM) retrieval requires cognitive resources, reflected by costs to ongoing task performance (i.e., worse accuracy and/or slower response times). Strategic monitoring refers to the use of context to engage or disengage monitoring when a PM target is anticipated or unanticipated. Laboratory strategic monitoring studies have found mixed results as to whether context specification improves PM performance. This study employed a meta-analytic technique to assess the overall effect of context specification on PM performance and ongoing task metrics of strategic monitoring. Overall, context specification improved PM performance when the target was anticipated and improved ongoing task performance (speed and accuracy) when the target was not anticipated. Moderator analyses revealed the degree of slowing in anticipated contexts predicted how much context specification improved PM performance. However, the benefits to PM performance from context specification differed by the type of procedure used. PM performance was improved when context changes could be predicted during blocked or proximity procedures, but not when context varied randomly in trial-level procedures. These results provide insights into the mechanisms underlying strategic monitoring and guidance for researchers on which procedures to be use depending on the theory-driven questions.
监测环境中的目标事件以触发前瞻性记忆（PM）检索需要认知资源，这反映在对正在进行的任务表现的影响上（即准确性降低和/或反应时间变慢）。策略性监测是指在预期或非预期的 PM 目标出现时，使用上下文来参与或不参与监测。实验室策略性监测研究对上下文规范是否能提高 PM 表现的结果存在分歧。本研究采用元分析技术来评估上下文规范对 PM 表现和策略性监测的持续任务指标的总体影响。总体而言，当目标可以预期时，上下文规范可以提高 PM 表现，而当目标不可预期时，它可以提高持续任务的表现（速度和准确性）。调节分析表明，预期背景下的减速程度预测了上下文规范可以提高 PM 表现的程度。然而，上下文规范对 PM 表现的益处因所使用的程序类型而异。当在阻塞或接近程序中可以预测上下文变化时，PM 表现会提高，但在试验级程序中随机变化时则不会。这些结果为策略性监测的机制提供了深入了解，并为研究人员提供了根据理论驱动问题选择使用哪种程序的指导。
