Predictors for carrying out prospective tasks in everyday life

Prospective memory involves remembering previously intended actions at a particular time or in response to a particular target event, termed time-based and event-based prospective memory, respectively. The aim of the research was to find out how people manage to perform individual prospective memory tasks in their daily lives and to establish what predictors have an impact on their performance. It was particularly important to examine the impact of the type of a prospective memory task (time-based or event-based), lifestyle, the dominating affect, and stress. Another aim was to establish whether re-coding an intention, i.e., coding originally time-based intentions as event-based intentions and vice versa, has an impact on its fulfilment. The presentation of the research is preceded by the literature review on the predictors of prospective memory performance, separately for laboratory-based and naturalistic tasks. Two studies were carried out in the natural context. Study 1 (N = 129) involved measuring potential prospective memory predictors and a very detailed measurement of performance of real-life intentions that took into account punctuality and reasons for non-fulfilment. Study 2 (N = 39) involved the controlled manipulation of whether an intention was or was not re-coded as the other type of a prospective memory task. The basic procedure was similar in the two studies. Every day, over the period of 5 days, participants were listing their intentions for the following day, and indicating whether intentions were time-based or event-based. After each day, they were contacted to indicate whether they had actually performed the intended actions. All potential predictors of performance were also measured daily. In line with our expectations, the superior performance of event-based tasks over time-based tasks that had been predicted by the prospective memory theories and found in laboratory-based research was reversed for real-life intentions: time-based intentions were performed better. Performance was also better with more routinised life and more positive emotions experienced daily, whereas it was worse with higher levels of everyday stress. The importance of intentions and the use of memory aids were also positively related to fulfilment. Re-coding intentions did not increase their completion. Mechanisms underlying the performance of different types of prospective memory tasks in daily life and avenues for future research are discussed