Toward a better understanding of costs in prospective memory: A meta-analytic review.

In prospective memory (PM) research, a common finding is that people are slower to perform an ongoing task with concurrent PM demands than to perform the same task alone. This slowing, referred to as costs, has been seen as reflecting the processes underlying successful PM. Historically, costs have been interpreted as evidence that attentional capacity is being devoted toward detecting PM targets and maintaining the intention in working memory;...