Relationship between prospective memory and vigilance: Evidence from ERP

Abstract

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were used in this study to investigate the neural correlates of prospective memory (PM) and vigilance. Twenty college or graduate students participated in this study. They were administered a PM and a vigilance task and physiological data were collected at the same time. Behavioral results showed that the RT associated with PM cues was longer than those associated with vigilance targets. ERP results showed that PM cues and vigilance targets did not show significant difference in the N2 but PM cues evoked greater N300 than vigilance targets, and vigilance targets evoked greater parietal positivity/P3 than PM cues, suggesting vigilance and PM have similar but also distinctive neural basis.