‘Please, remind me…’: The role of others in prospective remembering

In a study examining the effects of reminding expectations on prospective remembering, participants were asked to perform three internally and three externally cued tasks following a 30-minute filler activity. Experimental participants were informed that at the time for performance they were to: remind another (confederate) participant about the tasks; receive a reminder about the tasks from the confederate; or both. Control participants heard nothing about reminders. Those led to expect a reminder performed significantly fewer tasks than did those who were not, regardless of whether they were to provide a reminder. Those expecting to provide a reminder performed more tasks than did those who were not, but this difference was only marginally significant. In all conditions, significantly more externally cued than internally cued tasks were performed. Reminding expectations appear to have affected retention of the content of to-be-performed tasks, rather than retention of the intent to perform them. The results are discussed in terms of modifications to the activation levels of the to-be-performed activities and/or to participants' self-reminding strategies as a function of reminding expectations. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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