ABSTRACT
Pending goals are intentions that are postponed by a planner because they do not fit into the current ongoing goal pursuit. Recognizing later opportunities to achieve pending goals is important because it allows one to defer work on a goal until in a better position to achieve it. Patalano, Seifert and Hammond (1993) show that predictive encoding — predicting at the time of suspension what resources arc needed to solve a pending goal — serves to facilitate later recognition of opportunities. Moreover, by encoding a functional description of the plan rather than a more specific one, people may maximize the likelihood that they will retrieve a particular goal when a cue relevant to its resolution appears (Patalano & Seifert, 1996). For example, to hang up a poster, one might generate either "stick up with adhesive" or "stick up with glue" as a plan. The former plan may be more likely to induce goal retrieval in the presence of tape, chewing gum, glue, etc., while the latter may miss these opportunities for bringing the goal to mind.
