Automatic processes, controlled processes and metacognitive functions in prospective memory

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The research project aims at methodological approaches to analyzing automatic, controlled and metacognitive processes in event-based prospective memory. Event-based prospective memory includes the retention and realization of intended actions in response to cueing events in the future. During the first funding period, new experimental methods were developed for the investigation of automatic processes in cue detection and action initiation and for the analysis of metacognitive mechanisms. Furthermore statistical methods were refined for the analysis of specific processes in prospective memory. The research programme of the second funding period builds on these experimental and statistical advances and introduces generalized multi level analysis as a promising new analysis technique in prospective memory research. Generalized multi level analysis allows one to model the discrete dependent variable without unwarranted distributional assumptions, and it enables the specification of predictors of prospective memory performance on different levels. In addition to person variables, like individual working-memory capacity or the general impairment of a person by the prospective memory task, predictors can be analyzed on the level of the cueing events, like the intrainividual variability of cognitive resource allocation over the cues or any peculiarities of the cues themselves. Multi level analysis thus allows the theory-driven specification and test of new predictors and their interactions with respect to the realization of intended actions. The range of analysis is demonstrated by six original experiments, and it is simultaneously applied to substantive research questions concerning the role of metacognitive expectations, the effect of interindividual differences in cognitive capability, the cognitive control of action initiation, and aging effects on prospective memory.