Prospective memory in an air traffic control simulation: External aids that signal when to act.

Abstract

At work and in our personal life we often need to remember to perform intended actions at some point in the future, referred to as Prospective Memory. Individuals sometimes forget to perform intentions in safety-critical work contexts. Holding intentions can also interfere with ongoing tasks. We applied theories and methods from the experimental literature to test the effectiveness of external aids in reducing prospective memory error and costs to ongoing tasks in an air traffic control simulation. Participants were trained to accept and hand-off aircraft, and to detect aircraft conflicts. For the prospective memory task participants were required to substitute alternative actions for routine actions when accepting target aircraft. Across two experiments, external display aids were provided that presented the details of target aircraft and associated intended actions. We predicted that aids would only be effective if they provided information that was diagnostic of target occurrence and in this study we examined the utility of aids that directly cued participants when to allocate attention to the prospective memory task. When aids were set to flash when the prospective memory target aircraft needed to be accepted, prospective memory error and costs to ongoing tasks of aircraft acceptance and conflict detection were reduced. In contrast, aids that did not alert participants specifically when the target aircraft were present provided no advantage compared to when no aids we used. These findings have practical implications for the potential relative utility of automated external aids for occupations where individuals monitor multi-item dynamic displays.

Social importance enhances prospective memory: evidence from an event-based task

“…Strategic monitoring is typically only activated when the appropriate context to perform a prospective memory task is reached (cf. Loft, Smith, & Bhaskara, 2011;Marsh, Hicks, & Cook, 2006;Meier et al, 2006). In an activity-based task, no interruption of the ongoing task is necessary because the appropriate moment is by definition signaled by the end of an activity.…”

Wait a second: Brief delays in responding reduce focality effects in event-based prospective memory

“…We use existing concepts in standard information-processing models to provide insight into why resource allocation is not fully adjusted in nonfocal compared to focal tasks. As discussed later, it is also important for practical purposes to understand the task demand factors that influence resource allocation and the subsequent probability of PM error (Kliegel, Jäger, & Phillips, 2008;Loft, Smith, & Bhaskara, 2011).…”

A fresh pair of eyes on prospective memory monitoring

“…Past studies have revealed that contextual cues in the environment often prompt retrieval of a future intention (Harris & Wilkins, 1982, Henry et al, 2012Kuhlmann & Rummel, 2014;Kvavilashvilli & Fisher, 2007), and the present research extended this finding with the observation that contextual cues can trigger retrieval of the future intention, thereby prompting participants to overtly monitor for prospective memory targets. Salient external cues have been shown to be helpful to adults (Guajardo & Best, 2000) in a variety of laboratory studies (Einstein & McDaniel, 1996;Kim & Mayhorn, 2008;Villa, 1998), including investigations of air traffic control (Loft et al, 2011). In particular, external aids were helpful when they appeared in the context of the prospective memory targets.…”

“…Both self-report and behavioral data suggest that environmental cues can serve as a reminder for a prospective memory intention (Harris & Wilkins, 1982;Henry, Rendell, Phillips, Dunlop, & Kliegel, 2012;Kvavilashvili & Fisher, 2007) and that environmental cues can be used to support prospective memory in laboratory simulated air traffic control scenarios (Loft, Smith, & Bhaskara, 2011). It remains unclear exactly how environmental cues interact with the cognitive mechanisms supporting prospective memory, although some research has suggested that people will adjust how they allocate attention to the prospective memory task if they are instructed about contextual cues that will accompany the prospective memory target (Kuhlmann & Rummel, 2014).…”