The temporal dynamics of prospective memory: a review of the ERP and prospective memory literature

This review article examines the literature using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to study the temporal dynamics of the neurocognitive processes underpinning event-based prospective memory (PM). The successful encoding of delayed intentions is associated with slow wave activity over the frontal region in younger adults and this activity is attenuated in older adults. The realization of delayed intentions is associated with distinct components of the ERPs that are associated with the detection of a PM cue in the environment (N300), the retrieval of an intention from memory (recognition old-new effect), signaling the need to switch from the ongoing activity (frontal positivity), and configuration of the PM task set (parietal positivity). The development of prospective memory across the lifespan appears to reflect development of processes associated with retrieval of the cue-intention association from memory, and executive processes related to cue detection. The final section of the review examines the nature of executive processes that support PM within the context of a theory of the supervisory attentional system.