Thinking about it: The impact of COVID-19 related stimuli on Prospective Memory

Abstract

Abstract Since 2020, information regarding COVID-19 has been a constant presence in the news and in our thoughts. Does this burden affect abilities essential to everyday functioning, such as Prospective Memory (PM), the ability to remember to perform an intention in the future? To answer this question, we proposed a PM paradigm composed of a Baseline and a PM conditions, between which a video clip was inserted. One of three possible video clips was displayed to each participant, presenting either neutral, negative, or COVID-related contents. To evaluate participants’ well-being and experience with the pandemic, the DASS-21 scale and the COVID-19-PTSD questionnaire were administered. A linear mixed effect (LME) model revealed a significant effect of the video on performance: participants that saw the COVID-related clip performed significantly better in the PM condition than participants in the other conditions, whereas the presentation of the video displaying negative contents was associated with decreased accuracy in the PM condition compared to the Baseline. Altogether, these results indicate a different effect of the exposure to “classical” negative contents (associated with decreased performance) and pandemic-related ones, that showed instead to improve accuracy. This counterintuitive finding seems to suggest that COVID-related stimuli are processed as “acute stressors” rather than negative stimuli. The explanatory power of the LME Model calculated on accuracy increased when the scores in the anxiety subscale of the DASS-21 were included suggesting a detrimental role of anxiety on our ability to perform a PM task.