Investigating the encoding and retrieval of intentions with event-related potentials

Strong evidence exists in the literature that remembering to complete intentions involves executive processing subserved by the frontal lobes. Event-related potentials were measured during the encoding of actions with the intention to perform versus more neutral material about which there was no such intentionality. Event-related potentials were also measured in a two-alternative discrimination task requiring identification of the to-be-performed actions and to-be-memorized actions. The results suggest that formation and retrieval of intentions differs from encoding and retrieval of similar material committed to memory. Additionally, the results suggest that right frontal areas may play an important role in the formation of prospective actions and that intentions are kept active in memory by processing mediated by the left frontal pole.