Is stress linked to remembering what you planned to do?

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Prospective memory is remembering to carry out future intentions, such as taking medication. It is important for daily functioning and meeting obligations, but various factors can cause it to fail. One possible factor is stress, the body’s physiological response to a difficult situation or event.

Previous research on stress and prospective memory is limited and has produced ambiguous findings, primarily because of poor measurement validity. Using a predominantly university-based sample, the researchers examined whether acute or chronic stress, measured through stress responses and exposure to stressors, was linked to prospective-memory performance in everyday environments.

They developed a new, ecologically valid paradigm based on Actual Week. Participants carried out a variety of researcher-assigned prospective-memory tasks over four days.

Acute stress, assessed using short-term stress indices aggregated over four evenings, did not correlate with task performance. Chronic exposure to stressors was negatively correlated with performance, although the effect was small. All stress measures were associated with impaired self-reported prospective memory. The researchers suggest that actual performance and perceived memory ratings overlap modestly and likely reflect partly distinct aspects of prospective memory. They conclude that more accurate approaches are needed to evaluate stress and prospective memory in everyday life.