Responsible attention: the effect of divided attention on metacognition and responsible remembering

Abstract

We are frequently exposed to situations where we need to remember important information when our attentional resources are divided; however, it was previously unclear how divided attention impacts responsible remembering: selective memory for important information to avoid consequences for forgetting. In the present study, we examined participants’ memory for valuable information, metacognitive accuracy, and goal-directed cognitive control mechanisms when under full and divided attention. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with words paired with point values counting towards their score if recalled but were required to “bet” on whether they would remember it. Results revealed that selective memory for high-value information was impaired under divided attention. In Experiment 2, we presented participants with unassociated word pairs and solicited metacognitive predictions of recall (i.e., JOLs). Results revealed that the relative accuracy of participants’ metacognitive judgments was enhanced when studying under divided attention. Experiment 3 examined cognitive control mechanisms to selectively remember goal-relevant information at the expense of information that could potentially be offloaded (i.e., responsible forgetting). Results revealed that participants’ ability to strategically prioritize goal-relevant information at the expense of information that could be offloaded was preserved under divided attention. Collectively, responsible attention encompasses how attentional resources impact one’s ability to engage in responsible remembering and we demonstrate that responsible remembering can be impaired, enhanced, and preserved in certain contexts.

Value-directed retrieval: The effects of divided attention at encoding and retrieval on memory selectivity and retrieval dynamics.

“…Results revealed that dividing participants’ attention during the study phase reduced participants’ ability to remember the words, consistent with prior research (see Castel & Craik, 2003; Craik et al, 1996; Naveh-Benjamin, Craik, Perretta, & Tonev, 2000). Additionally, selectivity was reduced in participants under divided attention, consistent with some previous work suggesting that, under certain conditions, selectivity can be impaired when attention is divided at encoding (see Elliott & Brewer, 2019; Murphy & Castel, 2022c; Siegel & Castel, 2018b). However, PFR was preserved when participants’ attention was divided during the study phase, although participants with divided attention demonstrated reduced lag-recency effects.…”

“…Again, some prior work has found that divided attention during encoding does not impede selective memory under some conditions (e.g., Middlebrooks et al, 2017) while other work has shown that more difficult divided attention tasks—but not easier ones—reduce learners’ ability to prioritize valuable items in memory (e.g., Elliott & Brewer, 2019; see also Murphy & Castel, 2022c). Additionally, prior work suggests that divided attention tasks that span the same modality as the learning task tend to impair selectivity (e.g., Siegel et al, 2021).…”

Younger and older adults’ strategic use of associative memory and metacognitive control when learning foreign vocabulary words of varying importance.

“…Taken together, the present studies suggest that both younger and older adults engage in responsible remembering (Murphy & Castel, 2020, 2021a, 2021b, 2022a, 2022b but may do so in different ways. Specifically, under some circumstances, older adults may use study strategies such as spending more time studying on later trials to overcome potential associative memory deficits and remember important information.…”

“…When presented with more information than we can remember, we need to strategically focus on and remember the most important information with consequences if forgotten, a notion we termed responsible remembering (Murphy & Castel, 2020, 2021a, 2021b, 2022a, 2022b; Murphy et al, 2022). Responsible remembering encompasses enhanced metacognitive processes as well as the strategic allocation of attention toward important information to avoid undesirable outcomes and even tragic consequences such as forgetting about a potentially deadly medication interaction or leaving an infant in the backseat of a hot car (see Castel & Rhodes, 2020).…”

Age-related differences in memory when offloading important information.

“…For example, Murphy and Castel (2022c) presented learners with a list of items to remember for a camping trip and demonstrated that both younger and older adults best remembered important information (e.g., "tent") compared with information of less importance (e.g., "shovel"; see also Murphy et al, 2023). This exemplifies the notion of responsible remembering, which involves enhanced memory for important information with consequences for forgetting as well as the metacognitive strategies and underlying mechanisms contributing to this form of selective memory (Murphy & Castel, 2020, 2021a, 2021b, 2022dMurphy, Schwartz, et al, 2022;Murphy, Hoover, et al, 2022;Murphy & Knowlton, 2022).…”