Alpha Oscillations in Parietal and Parietooccipital Explaining How Boredom Matters Prospective Memory

Intelligent interaction alters previous human–machine task allocation patterns. Human workers will suffer from boredom and inattention, posing a significant challenge for the human–machine interaction loop. This study aims to investigate the relationship between boredom and prospective memory, which is a memory form including the detecting, identifying, and executing functions. Thus, the attention and memory mechanisms are critical to complete prospective memory tasks when bored. This study recruited twenty-eight participants and used electroencephalography to measure the alpha power in brain regions. The results indicated that parietal oscillations had a mediation effect on prospective memory, which could be associated with the frequent unstable attention. In addition, this study found that parietooccipital oscillations linked boredom and prospective memory, and the default mode network (DMN) and visual processing during boredom could better explain this finding. The findings of this study suggested that attention management and influences of processing visual information were starting points to cope with boredom because they could help prepare for prospective memory and make optimal decisions accordingly.

Strategic attention and decision control support prospective memory in a complex dual-task environment

Human performance in complex multiple-task environments depends critically on the interplay between cognitive control and cognitive capacity. In this paper we propose a tractable computational model of how cognitive control and capacity influence the speed and accuracy of decisions made in the event-based prospective memory (PM) paradigm, and in doing so test a new quantitative formulation that measures two distinct components of cognitive capacity (gain and focus) that apply generally to choices among two or more options. Consistent with prior work, individuals used proactive control (increased ongoing task thresholds under PM load) and reactive control (inhibited ongoing task accumulation rates to PM items) to support PM performance. Individuals used cognitive gain to increase the amount of resources allocated to the ongoing task under time pressure and PM load. However, when demands exceeded the capacity limit, resources were reallocated (shared) between ongoing task and PM processes. Extending previous work, individuals used cognitive focus to control the quality of processing for the ongoing and PM tasks based on the particular demand and payoff structure of the environment (e.g., higher focus for higher priority tasks; lower focus under high time pressure and with PM load). Our model provides the first detailed quantitative understanding of cognitive gain and focus as they apply to evidence accumulation models, which - along with cognitive control mechanisms - support decision-making in complex multiple-task environments.

The effect of different distractions on remembering delayed intentions

In safety-critical domains, frequently intentions need to be delayed until an ongoing task is completed. Research using the delay-execute paradigm showed that interruptions during the delay cause forgetting. However, staff members often handle an initial distraction not by interrupting the ongoing task but by acknowledging the distraction or multitasking. In Experiments 1a and 1b, we observed that, compared to a no distraction condition, multitasking significantly decreased remembering of intentions and interrupting decreased remembering even further. In Experiment 2, interruptions with context change reduced remembering of intentions compared to uninterrupted delays, and at the same time, interruptions without context change improved memory performance compared to uninterrupted delays. However, improved memory performance resulted in decreased interrupting task performance. Theoretically, the results support the contextual cueing mechanism of delay-execute tasks. Considering safety-critical domains, multitasking, interruptions and context changes can contribute to forgetting of tasks.

Commission errors in delay-execute prospective memory tasks

Individuals frequently retrieve an intention, but the execution of the task needs to be delayed due to ongoing task demands - so-called delay-execute prospective memory (PM) tasks. We investigated commission errors in the delay-execute paradigm. Participants were told that a PM task is finished (PM task has been executed and is now finished for a final phase) or cancelled (PM task has been cancelled immediately after introduction). We observed commission errors and ongoing task performance in the final phase which included several irrelevant PM cues. In two experiments, we observed significantly more commission errors for cancelled compared to the finished intentions. In Experiment 2, commission errors were eliminated if the final phase required divided attention, regardless of PM task status. In addition, we observed significantly more PM cue interference on the ongoing task in the cancelled compared to the finished group, indicating that the PM task was retrieved in the cancelled group but not in the finished group. As retrieval and execution of the PM task were separated by a delay, the results indicate that commission errors are not always the result of a quick, spontaneous retrieval-execution sequence and may also occur when retrieval and execution are temporally separated.