A new experimental paradigm to investigate prospective and working memory

Prospective memory (PM) concerns the ability to achieve a previously organized future intention in a given time. This mechanism requires the involvement of working memory (WM), which allows to coordinate simultaneous processes. The relation between WM and PM is a debated theme in literature. The present study aims to observe the engagement of WM in PM, investigating how these two mechanisms are correlated or partially independent. Two ongoing activities concurrently with a prospective switching task were administered to a sample of 21 healthy participants. The first task (arithmetic) consists in the development of a low-cognitive WM activity together with a PM task to be conducted after the presentation of a cue (eventbased) or at a given moment (time-based). The second experiment (PASAT) demands to perform a high load WM activity and a PM task according to the same modalities of arithmetic task. Results show that WM influences PM performance only in high load WM tasks requiring an active PM self-retrieval (time-pasat). Such findings support the partially independent of WM and PM, consisted of distinct processes.