Effects of nicotine use on event-based prospective memory and the role of delayed response strategy

Nicotine use has long been associated with reduced cognitive performance, particularly in the domain of prospective memory. This study explores how nicotine use affects event-based prospective memory and the impact of a "delayed response" strategy on performance.

The participants in this study were university students who nicotine use. Two experiments were conducted in the laboratory using a dual-task paradigm to simulate daily prospective memory. The Multinomial Processing Tree (MPT) model was employed to decompose event-based prospective memory into two components: the prospective component (cue monitoring) and the retrospective component (intention retrieval), to examine the psychological mechanisms underlying the effects of nicotine use and the delayed response strategy on event-based prospective memory.

In Experiment 1, individuals who nicotine use exhibited lower cue monitoring ability and lower prospective memory performance during withdrawal. However, acute nicotine intake temporarily restored cue monitoring ability and prospective memory performance. In Experiment 2, the use of a delayed response strategy eliminated differences in cue monitoring ability and prospective memory performance between individuals who nicotine use and the control group.

The study suggests that nicotine use among university students is associated with lower prospective memory performance, primarily manifested as a lower performance of cue monitoring. While acute nicotine intake may temporarily enhance prospective memory performance, it may also exacerbate nicotine use. However, delayed response strategies provide an effective method for individuals who nicotine use to improve event-based prospective memory performance without increasing nicotine use.