title: Inhibitory Control Processing of Prospective Memory: An ERP Investigation
Creators: name: Hockey, Andrew
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Prospective Memory
subject: inhibitory control
subject: information processing

description: Prospective memory supports the retrieval and execution of delayed intentions stored in retrospective memory whilst maintaining the focus of attention on ongoing task demands. The aim of this thesis was to investigate how inhibitory control is engaged to manage delayed intention representations at different stages of PM information processing to minimize the influence of interference on task performance outcomes. This was achieved over three studies analyzing behavioural and event related potential data recorded while participants managed different competing prospective memory and ongoing task demands. Study 1 replicated and extended prior research comparing the effect that different PM response selection demands have on electrophysiological correlates of prospective memory performance. Results demonstrated that increased inhibitory control supported middle stage working memory context updating (late parietal complex 400-700ms) and late-stage task coordination processes (late parietal complex 700-1000ms) when participants had to inhibit ongoing task processing to provide an immediate prospective memory response. Study 2 investigated the role of inhibitory control while managing unwanted delayed intention information retrieved from retrospective memory. Old-prospective memory cue presentations induced interference which was isolated to late occurring electrophysiological activity occurring over parietal electrode sites (late parietal complex 700-1000ms). These corresponded to the timeframe in which retrospective memory retrieval was expected to occur. Last, motor control processing in prospective memory was investigated in Study 3 by manipulating motor-stopping and prospective memory response selection demands. Middle-stage prospective memory processing was especially influenced by the induction of increased motor inhibition processing (late parietal complex 400-700ms). Overall, this thesis shows that interference control in prospective memory occurs over multiple stages of information processing. It highlights a close proximal association between ii inhibition and the context updating of delayed intention representations in working memory based on the early visual cue detection and categorization processes and middle stage retrospective memory retrieval mechanisms, each of which culminates in the selection of different response outcomes. Most important, findings obtained over the three studies indicate that interference control evolved over multiple epochs, contingent on context dependent variations in task demand placed on attention. Electrophysiological correlates of early visual cue detection mechanisms (posterior N200 and N300) were not directly modulated by different inhibitory control demands. But the timing and amplitude of these varied significantly between task conditions, indicating that the preliminary selection of different task-sets was facilitated by the integration of variable stimulus – response associations in visual working memory. Middle and later stage information processes on the other hand appeared to be modulated by different interference control processes, the electrophysical expression of which varied depending on the nature and timing that different stimulus-response conflicts occurred, and relative accessibility of various task representations in working memory.