Effects of Ego Depletion on Prospective Memory and Its Components

ABSTRACT Ego depletion reduces the ability of individuals to resist irrelevant interference, which in turn complicates the successful completion of prospective memory tasks. In Experiment 1, we recruited 120 university students to investigate the effects of ego depletion on prospective memory under different attentional loads and its different components. Results show that ego depletion impaired the prospective memory performance across all attentional load conditions and reduced attentional resources, which affected effective cue monitoring. In Experiment 2, 96 university students were recruited to explore the effectiveness of various types of reminders on prospective memory in a state of ego depletion. Findings reflect that all types of reminders can improve prospective memory performance under ego depletion, but improvement mechanisms differed. Moreover, direct and indirect reminders will reduce individuals' attention consumption during intention retention. In contrast, external reminders do not involve attention demands.