Prospective Memory Is (Also) Not Immune to Imagery

Abstract

The study adopted a study-test paradigm to investigate whether imagery has a similar effect on prospective memory as it does on retrospective memory. The sample consists of 160 introductory psychology students. The participants were randomly assigned into 2 between groups of imagery: no-imagery and imagery groups. All the participants first studied paired-associate words (List A-B) and were later tested on the paired-associate recall test and sentence construction task. The 2 tests were performed simultaneously. Results of data analyses using the multivariate statistical model showed that memory was better for participants in the imagery group than for participants in the no-imagery group for retrospective memory (p < .001), as well as for prospective memory (p < .001). The obtained effect sizes (ES) of 0.26 and 0.21 for retrospective and prospective memory respectively demonstrate that imagery affects not only retrospective memory, but also prospective memory.