The effect of impulsivity trait on prospective memory

Prospective memory (PM) is future-oriented memory that requires planning ahead, maintaining intention, recognizing cues, and responding correctly in time. PM tasks are susceptible to personality traits such as impulsivity. Barratt holds that impulsivity can be divided into three dimensions: non-planning impulsiveness, attentional impulsiveness, and motor impulsiveness. The characteristics of impulsive individuals in these three areas may contribute to their PM disadvantage. This study explored the impact of impulsivity on PM. Experiment 1 investigated the influence of impulsivity on PM under different attention load conditions. The results showed that the impulsive group was inferior only under the condition of high attention load; this effect was mainly related to the characteristics of attentional impulsiveness and motor impulsiveness. Experiment 2 explored the effect of impulsivity on PM under different response types, which were divided into delayed response condition and non-delayed response condition. The results showed that delayed response eliminated the impulsive individuals’ deficiency in PM performance. This study focused on the influencing factors and processing mechanism by which impulsivity affects PM. It also found an effective method to improve the PM performance of impulsive individuals. These results have both theoretical and practical significance.