Forgetting from lapses of sustained attention

Abstract

When performing any task for an extended period of time, attention fluctuates between good and bad states. These fluctuations affect performance in the moment, but may also have lasting consequences for what gets encoded into memory. Experiment 1 establishes this relationship between attentional states and memory, by showing that subsequent memory for an item was predicted by a response time index of sustained attention (average response time during the three trials prior to stimulus onset). Experiment 2 strengthens the causal interpretation of this predictive relationship by treating the sustained attention index as an independent variable to trigger the appearance of an encoding trial. Subsequent memory was better when items were triggered from good versus bad attentional states. Together, these findings suggest that sustained attention can have downstream consequences for what we remember, and they highlight the inferential utility of adaptive experimental designs. By continuously monitoring attention, we can influence what will later be remembered.

Neural signatures of attentional engagement during narratives and its consequences for event memory

“…Previous research has studied interactions between sustained attention and subsequent memory using controlled psychological tasks that measure participants' memory for stimuli encountered in different attentional states. For example, participants in a study from deBettencourt et al 4 performed a CPT and then reported their incidental recognition memory of the presented images. CPT stimuli seen during engaged attentional states (indexed with response times) were better remembered.…”

“…2,3 Such fluctuations of attention not only influence our ongoing perceptual experience, but can also have consequences for what we later remember. 4 Changes in attentional states are typically studied with continuous performance tasks (CPTs), which require participants to respond to rare targets in a constant stream of stimuli or respond to every presented stimulus except the rare target. [5][6][7] Paying attention to taxing CPTs, however, often feels different than paying attention in other everyday situations.…”

Assessing the temporal learning account of the list-wide proportion congruence effect.

“…Since the seventies, the list-wide PC manipulation has been extensively employed to index the context-sensitive modulation of attention in tasks such as Stroop color-naming (e.g., Cheesman & Merikle, 1986;Glaser & Glaser, 1982;Kane & Engle, 2003;Lindsay & Jacoby, 1994;Logan, 1980;Logan & Zbrodoff, 1979;Lowe & Mitterer, 1982;Shor, 1975;West & Baylis, 1998). The list-wide PC manipulation varies the relative frequency of congruent (e.g., the word "blue" displayed in blue ink) to incongruent (e.g., the word "red" displayed in blue ink) trials across list contexts (e.g., mostly congruent vs. mostly incongruent lists; for reviews and a user's guide to the manipulation, see Bugg, 2012Bugg, , 2017Bugg & Crump, 2012).…”

Sustained attention and spatial attention distinctly influence long-term memory encoding

“…Sustained attention fluctuates between advantageous and disadvantageous states over time. These trial-by-trial fluctuations of sustained attention predict which items are later remembered (deBettencourt et al, 2018). In fact, fluctuations of sustained attention remain a key candidate explanation for previous demonstrations of pre-trial states that predict long-term memory (Gruber & Otten, 2010;Guderian et al, 2009;Otten et al, 2006;Weidemann & Kahana, 2020).…”