Commission errors with forced response lag

Abstract

It is often necessary to retrieve intentions once a certain cue occurs in the environment. However, such prospective memory (PM) tasks can also be erroneously recalled even though they are no longer relevant and may result in commission errors. According to the dual mechanism account, commission errors occur because the intention is spontaneously retrieved, and there is a subsequent failure to suppress the associated action, resulting in erroneous instant execution. In three experiments, we tested whether failed response suppression is a prerequisite for commission errors. We set up a response lag condition in which participants had to delay their response to ongoing task trials for 1 s (Experiment 1) or 2 s (Experiments 2 and 3) and a pause condition in which the delay occurred between ongoing task trials. In both conditions, participants learned about a PM task and were then told that the PM task was cancelled. In addition, a control group with response lag executed the PM task and was subsequently told the task was finished. Later, all participants encountered several irrelevant PM cues. If failed response suppression is a prerequisite for commission errors, commission error rates should be non-existent in the response lag conditions, because participants had designated time to suppress the PM action. However, commission errors occurred at an equal rate in all lag and pause conditions. Due to this contradiction to the dual mechanism account, we suggest that the process for commission error occurrence should be reconsidered. Because commission errors appear not to be caused by failed response suppression, we discuss the idea that erroneous intentions might be formed when encountering the former PM cue and persist over delays between formation and execution.

Aftereffects and deactivation of completed prospective memory intentions: A systematic review.

“…For instance, aftereffects increased under high cognitive control demands (divided attention) during finished phases (e.g., Schaper & Grundgeiger, 2017) or when participants showed impaired cognitive control abilities (e.g., Scullin et al, 2011). Recently, Schaper and Grundgeiger (2019) argued that similar effects observed following the cancellation of an encoded PM task might not necessarily reflect failed response suppression. That is, providing time for response suppression after encountering a no-longer-relevant PM cue did not reduce commission errors in their study.…”

“…Some attribute the occurrence of aftereffects to features of the experimental paradigm, like confusion of participants about the finished task instructions, the proximity of response buttons for PM and ongoing-task responses, or to participants lacking cognitive resources for postactional processing to actively disengage from a completed intention (see Penningroth, 2011). Although Schaper and Grundgeiger (2019) recently suggested that encountering no-longer-relevant PM cues might prompt participants to erroneously form an intention to perform the already completed PM task again, leading to commission errors, it seems unlikely that aftereffects of completed intentions can be explained solely by these factors. They might, however, nevertheless contribute to the occurrence of aftereffects.…”

“…Bugg, 2014;Verhaeghen, 2011 for evidence of spared control with age) when PM tasks needed to be suspended briefly (Boywitt, Rummel, & Meiser, 2015) or were finished (Bugg et al, 2016;Scullin et al, 2012;cf. Bugg et al, 2013;Cohen et al, 2005) Higher CE risk for older adults with Alzheimer's disease, who show impaired cognitive-control abilities (El Haj et al, 2018) Transient activation of rostro-lateral prefrontal cortex that is argued to reflect a mobilization of reactive cognitive control in order to solve response conflicts (Braver, 2012) during encounters of no-longerrelevant PM cues (Beck et al, 2014) CEs occur for cancelled intentions, despite forced response lags between no-longer-relevant PM cues and response opportunities, which is thought to provide time to mobilize cognitive control over intention execution (Schaper & Grundgeiger, 2019) Personal dispositions or motivational orientations for control mobilization to disengage from finished intentions Higher memory accessibility of intention-related semantic networks after intention completion in prevention-focused individuals who often try to maintain a successfully attained goal state (e.g., Higgins, 1997) than in promotion-focused participants who often try to attain a new goal after finishing one (Hedberg & Higgins, 2011)…”

How Does Performing Demanding Activities Influence Prospective Memory? A Systematic Review

“…Surprisingly, there is growing evidence that, under conditions of heavy cognitive load or distraction, participants may continue to perform a previously planned intention when they no longer have to do so ( Boywitt et al, 2015 , Experiment 1; Matos et al, 2020 ; Pink & Dodson, 2013 ). These memory failures, termed as PM commission errors, are thought to occur when participants spontaneously notice the PM cue and fail to inhibit PM execution ( Bugg et al, 2016 ; Scullin et al, 2012 ; Schaper & Grundgeiger, 2019 ). This can be observed, for example, in some studies ( Boywitt et al, 2015 , Experiment 1; Matos et al, 2020 ; Pink & Dodson, 2013 , Experiments 1a and 1b) adding tone-monitoring, digit-monitoring or counting recall tasks to an LDT in which focal PM cues were embedded (i.e., pressing a key when target words were detected).…”

Dissociating sub-processes of aftereffects of completed intentions and costs to the ongoing task in prospective memory: A mouse-tracking approach

“…Instead, we argue that the late-onset response slowing reflects a response verification process. In line with Schaper and Grundgeiger (2019), we assume that spontaneously retrieving the no-longer-relevant PM response and exerting control over intention execution to prevent making a commission error in a PM REPEATED trial elicits an experience of a discrepancy, which then triggers a search in memory to verify whether interrupting the PM response was correct or not. This notion is further corroborated by preliminary evidence of a negative correlation between initial movement deflection and the peak of response slowing in our exploratory analysis, which suggests that the verification process seems to be more time-consuming the further the no-longer-relevant PM response had been performed initially.…”