Characterization of Prospective Memory and Associated Processes

Attention in prospective memory research has focused simultaneously on processes that affect prospective memory retrieval and associated scheduling within ongoing tasks. In concert, newer, and often, more sophisticated approaches are being developed. The first part of this chapter focuses on measurement of response times in ongoing tasks and how these response time distributions are affected by holding an intention. The ex-Gaussian distribution is one example that characterizes response time distributions well. Parameters within this model have been used recently to indicate evidence of costs to holding intentions. We also review evidence accumulation models, such as drift diffusion models and linear ballistic accumulator models that have been applied to model choice and response time information. The application of multinomial processing tree (MPT) models to prospective and ongoing task responses is also covered. Finally, we review a very recent computational process model of prospective memory—an effort that is relatively new in the prospective memory field.