ABSTRACT

The study of prospective memory is booming. As Kvavilashvili and Ellis (this volume) note, psychological meetings have whole sessions devoted to the topic, papers on it appear regularly in the journals, and now an entire book is devoted to it. They also point out that the actual number of empirical and re­ view papers is still rather small-they count about 45. Even assuming that by the time this book is published the number will have increased to, say, 60 or so, the amount of information would still be manageable, relative to a number of other topics in cognitive psychology. A person could still spend 2 weeks in the library and master the extant literature. As most of the authors in this sec­ tion point out, although the study of prospective memory enjoyed a promising beginning, much (even most) remains to be learned on this topic. Researchers in this area are beginning to understand the topic, but are in no danger yet of completing the job. The aim of the present commentary is to assess the progress made to this point. On balance, it is impressive, with researchers de­ veloping new paradigms and with interesting findings arising from them.