Limiting attentional resources influences performance and output monitoring of an event-based prospective memory task

We investigated how limiting attentional resources during a prospective memory task influences old and new judgement and output monitoring, using a paradigm designed by Marsh and Hicks (1998) and multinomial processing models. Our study revealed two novel findings. First, when participants do not remember whether an item was presented and whether they performed the prospective memory task, the risk of a participant guessing that he/she had successfully performed the prospective memory task was greater when more attentional resources were available. Second, even when a participant had successfully performed the prospective memory task, he/she remembered that the item had been actually presented less when the available attentional resources were limited.