Preparatory Attentional Process In Prospective Memory Processes

Since taking use of the dual-task laboratory paradigm in the1990s, prospectivememory（PM） research has made remarkable progress. The paper systematicallyintroduces the main achievements of prospective memory, including classification,research methods, theoretical models, processing and brain mechanism of theprospective memory background knowledge. The focus of this article is the debate oftheoretical models for event-based prospective memory. Many theoretical modelshave been proposed to explain the cognitive processing mechanism of event-basedprospective memory. It is worth noting that these theoretical models to explainconflicting. Which two relatively large influence theories of the theoretical models,the multi-processing model and the preparatory attentional and memory processingtheory explain the status of the course that from the completion of the prospectivememory coding to successfully extracted not the same. According to the preparatoryattention and memory processing theory, this process is a special status by the controlof the preparatory attentional processes, in this process with the consumption ofcontrolled resources for monitoring the target cues in the environment. While themulti-processing model believe that the need to consume cognitive resources to forman effective cues detection in this process depends on the experimental difficulty,stimulate materials, task familiarity, the total resource consumption and other factors.That means at least existing some of the experiments, in which the test does notrequire cognitive resources to probe the target cues in the environment. May have thecharacteristics these experiments of simple task, skilled subjects or obvious targetcues in the environment. The paper designed two experiments to test these twotheoretical models controversy. Experiment1used a single factor and two levelscompletely test design to compare the performance of the group of different physicalcharacteristics between the cues and the stimulates with that of similar physical characteristics group. The ongoing task（OT） was one-back task with meaninglessletter stimulates in it. The experiment set the ongoing task as the control group. Theresults showed that there was no significant difference of the performance in taskreaction time and correct rate between these two groups and the control group.Experiment2used a two factors and two levels of completely randomizedbetween-subject design to detect the influence of complexity of the prospectivecomponent and the retrospective component on the performance in the prospectivememory and ongoing task, in order to test the prediction of preparatory attention andmemory processing theory conclusions. It was found that these two factors had nosignificant impact on the results of the OT task, while on the PM task, finding that themore complex composition the slower the reaction time and the lower correct rate ofthe prospective memory task. In the complex retrospective component condition, thecomplexity of the prospective component had a significant impact on the reactiontime of the prospective memory task. The two experiments were more inclined tosupport multi-processing theory model. The experiment also raised that prospectivememory processing may involve more complex factors in the course from encodingsuccess to extraction of intention, and this process may be a more complex process.These factors may be the most fundamental differences between prospective memoryand other memory.