ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on event-based prospective memory (PM), in which the PM task is to respond to some future event or stimulus. It introduces the linear ballistic accumulator (LBA) and discusses its parameters. Most PM studies collect only few PM trials per participant to avoid constantly reminding participants of their pending PM tasks with frequent PM probing. As accumulation rates index capacity, and PM cost was assumed to result from decreased capacity, the initial hypothesis was that PM cost would be caused by lower quality non-PM accumulation. The diffusion decision model (DDM) attributes some PM cost to increased non-decision time. In contrast to the DDM, which can only accommodate two responses with its standard architecture, the LBA can easily accommodate both multiple choice ongoing task responses and the PM response without sacrificing mathematical tractability. PM decision control tests for capacity sharing by comparing non-PM trial accumulation rates across PM conditions and control conditions.
