Output monitoring in event-based prospective memory: Effects of contextual detail, attentional demands, sequence complexity, and age

Three experiments were conducted to examine the effects of contextual detail, attentional demands, sequence complexity, and age, on output monitoring within event-based prospective memory. Prospective memory refers to memory for future actions (e.g., remembering to deliver a message to a friend), while output monitoring refers to the processes involved in keeping track of one's own actions (e.g., deciding whether an action was performed or just planned). It was predicted that attentional demands, sequence complexity, and age, would have a negative effect on output monitoring while contextual detail would have a positive effect. It was also predicted that contextual detail would interact with attentional demands, sequence complexity, and age to offset the negative effects of these variables on output monitoring performance, while attentional demands would interact negatively with age. Experiment 1 examined the effects of sequence complexity and intrinsic detail. Contrary to predictions, both intrinsic detail and sequence complexity failed to negatively impact output monitoring performance. There was also no interaction between intrinsic detail and sequence complexity. Experiment 2 examined the effects of extraneous detail and attentional demands. Although high attentional demands were associated with poorer output monitoring, this effect was not significant. There was also no main effect of extraneous detail. Instead, extraneous detail appeared to aid output monitoring when attentional demands were high, but actually hurt performance when attentional demands were low. Finally, Experiment 3 examined the effects of age, intrinsic detail, and attentional demands on output monitoring. As predicted, both age and attentional demands had a negative effect on output monitoring while intrinsic detail had a positive effect. However, surprisingly, only younger adults benefited from intrinsic detail. Also surprising was that attentional demands failed to interact negatively with age. Taken together, the results are consistent with the idea that age and attentional demands have a negative effect on output monitoring while contextual detail has a positive effect. However, depending upon the nature of contextual detail, high detail may fail to offset the negative effects of age and attentional demands on output monitoring performance.