. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Jul 1.

Published in final edited form as: Conscious Cogn. 2014 Jun 12;27:213–230. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2014.05.003

Table 1.

Laboratory studies of the effects of implementation intentions using focal PM tasks.

Experiment		Task Descriptions		Did II Improve PM?	Cost Increase?	Notes
Experiment		Ongoing	PM	Did II Improve PM?	Cost Increase?	Notes
Chasteen et al. (2001)	1	Complete pencil and paper tasks.	Write day of week on top of each piece of paper.	Yes	N/A	Same experiment included a non-focal PM task described in Table 2.
McDaniel, Howard, & Butler (2008)	1	Word rating	Press Q if see spaghetti or doll	Yes	Not reported.	DA task: detect two odd digits in a row. DA did not affect PM performance.
McDaniel, Howard, & Butler (2008)	2	Word rating	Press Q if see spaghetti or doll	Yes	No	DA task: RNG. DA decreased PM in standard, but not in the II condition. Items remained on screen for 5 seconds even if response made before this time limit.
McDaniel & Scullin (2010)	1	Category verification	Press Z if see either of two specific target words.	Yes, in FA condition. No, in DA conditions.	No	DA task: RNG. DA decreased performance in both standard PM and II conditions.
	2		Press Enter if see word “history”	Yes, in FA condition. No, in DA conditions.	No
	3		Press Enter if see the target word.¹	No, compared to practice.	No	Practice condition² out performed II in DA condition. No difference in FA.
Meeks & Marsh (2010)	3	Lexical decision	Press / if see either of two target words	No	No	Ceiling effects prohibit interpretation.
McFarland & Glisky (2011)		Trivia Questions	See Notes	Yes	No	Standard PM Instructions: “If you see questions pertaining to ‘states,’ you should press the ‘6’ key.” II Instructions: “When I see the word ‘state,’ I will press the ‘6’ key.” Questions shown for 12 seconds, even if response made more quickly.
McFarland & Glisky (2012)		Trivia Questions	See Notes	Yes	No
Schnitzspahn & Kliegel (2009)		Complete pencil and paper tasks.	Write day of week on top of each piece of paper.	Yes	N/A	Benefit for II occurred for young-old, but not older-old. Same pattern for a time-based task.

PM = Prospective memory. II = Implementation intention. DA = Divided attention. FA = Full attention. RNG = Random number generation.

The target word varied.

The practice condition had standard PM instructions, but practiced the PM task.