Self-control Resource Depletion Impairs Subsequent Event-based Prospective Memory

Self-control is one of the most crucial qualities and abilities of human being.Failures in self-control are not only linked with maladaptive behaviors, but alsoreduce subsequent cognitive performance. In this study, self-control is defined as alimited resource that is similar to muscular energy. Such resource will diminish inmeasure after initial exertion on one action, which will lead to decrement of resourceavailable for other subsequent behaviors and therefore make individuals fail incontrolling themselves. On the ground of self-control strength model, cognitiveresource model and the active guiding and monitoring role of the self playing in thecognitive process, the current study first integrated a model to explain why selfcontrol resource and cognitive resource mutually affect, and then aimed atinvestigating the relationship of self-control resource depletion and event-basedprospective memory (EBPM) through three experiments. The results were as follows:(1) Results of experiment1showed that e-crossing task could successfullyinduce high and low self-control resource depletion. Relative to low depletion group,individuals in high depletion group underperformed in subsequent EBPM task, butthey did as well as low depletion group on the on-going task, after ruling out the moodeffect.(2) Visual inhibitory task and another EBPM task were adopted in experiment2.The results showed that visual inhibitory group (high depletion group) performedmarginally worse in the accuracy on the on-going task than no visual inhibitory group(low depletion group), and their accuracy on EBPM task was significantly worse thanthose assigned to low depletion group. These findings has ruled out the possibleconfounding variables such as mood, difficulty of the on-going tasks, characteristicsof self-control resource depletion task, interval between instructions and finalexperiment and sample homogenous.(3) To explore the effects of self-control resource depletion on EBPM using lexical materials, we used Stroop task in experiment3to manipulate high and lowself-control resource depletion, and a new variable termed “semantic relatedness” wasalso included. The results showed that high depletion and low semantic relatednesslead to worse subsequent accuracies of EBPM in general. More important, we foundself-control resource depletion mainly negatively affect subsequent accuracy ofprospective component of EBPM, but did not affect retrospective component atstatistically significant level. In sharp contrast, semantic relatedness significantlyreduced retrospective component significantly, but did not impair prospectivecomponent significantly. These findings supported the MPT model put forward bySmith and Bayen as well as the findings of the aging effect in prospective componentrather than in retrospective component.Three experiments conducted in this study were reconciled to support thatself-control resource depletion impairs subsequent accuracies of EBPM tasks andmainly affect its prospective component. Additionally, self-control resource depletionalso negatively influences the accuracy of the on-going tasks in a general manner. Inthe discussion section, this study explained why self-control resource depletioninfluence subsequent on-going task and EBPM task in a general perspective, and thendiscussed the relations of self-control resource depletion and various memoryperformances in line with previous findings. At last, the author also discussed thedynamic relations of the self and cognitive process, providing a prospective directionfor future research.