McGuire Mollie R, Gutzwiller Robert S
Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, USA.
Information Sciences Department, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, USA.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2025 Aug 26;10(1):55. doi: 10.1186/s41235-025-00665-y.
Remembering to carry out an intention at the appropriate time (prospective memory-PM) requires attentional resources that may be limited in stressful circumstances. PM failures in high-risk/high stress environments, such as military operations, can have fatal consequences, and yet, the effect of stress on PM has received little attention. Prior studies that have examined stress and PM used a basic laboratory paradigm that is less applicable to high-risk/high stress environments and have not examined activity-based PM (PM that is elicited by a sequence of events), nor the combined effect of stress and divided attention. The current study examined the effects of stress and divided attention on event-based PM (PM that is elicited by environmental cues to signal the appropriate time to perform an intended action) and activity-based PM using an applied paradigm with participants remotely piloting robotic reconnaissance missions. Stress and divided attention were manipulated between subjects, and prospective memory was manipulated within subjects. The stress induction was administered prior to the execution of the tasks, with an additional noise stressor continuously on top of the tasks. Divided attention was an auditory odd-digit task during the experimental tasks. Event-based PM accuracy was unaffected by stress or divided attention. However, there was an increase in activity-based PM accuracy in the high stress condition, while no effect of divided attention was found. These results are the first to demonstrate that stress affects activity-based PM, and suggest along with prior literature that stress does not affect event-based PM.
记住在适当的时候执行意图（前瞻性记忆-PM）需要注意力资源，而在压力环境下这些资源可能是有限的。在高风险/高压力环境（如军事行动）中，前瞻性记忆失误可能会带来致命后果，然而，压力对前瞻性记忆的影响却很少受到关注。先前研究压力与前瞻性记忆的实验采用的是基本实验室范式，这种范式不太适用于高风险/高压力环境，且未考察基于活动的前瞻性记忆（由一系列事件引发的前瞻性记忆），也未考察压力和注意力分散的综合影响。本研究采用一种应用范式，让参与者远程操控机器人侦察任务，以此考察压力和注意力分散对基于事件的前瞻性记忆（由环境线索提示执行预期行动的适当时间所引发的前瞻性记忆）和基于活动的前瞻性记忆的影响。压力和注意力分散在受试者间进行操控，前瞻性记忆在受试者内进行操控。在任务执行前施加压力诱导，且在任务过程中持续存在额外的噪音压力源。注意力分散任务是在实验任务期间进行的听觉奇数数字任务。基于事件的前瞻性记忆准确性不受压力或注意力分散的影响。然而，在高压力条件下，基于活动的前瞻性记忆准确性有所提高，而未发现注意力分散产生影响。这些结果首次证明压力会影响基于活动的前瞻性记忆，并与先前文献一同表明压力不会影响基于事件的前瞻性记忆。
