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Updated: May 31, 2026

A Semantic Priming Event-related Potential (ERP) Task to Study Lexico-semantic and Visuo-semantic Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Published on: April 12, 2018
Does Ongoing Task Load Influence Prospective Remembering in Autism Spectrum Disorders?
Daniela Nürnberg1, Mareike Altgassen1
1Department of Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
None:
Prospective memory (PM) refers to the cognitive ability to remember to carry out intended actions in the future. The present study investigated PM performance in autistic and non-autistic adults as well as the impact of the cognitive load of the ongoing task on PM performance. A total of 50 autistic individuals and 51 age- and non-verbal ability-matched non-autistic individuals completed an event-based PM task, which was embedded into an ongoing n-back task. The cognitive load of the n-back task was varied (2- vs. 3-back for low versus high cognitive load). Results showed that autistic participants did not differ from non-autistic participants in their PM performance. The cognitive load of the ongoing task had no impact on event-based PM performance in both groups. This is the first study to investigate the impact of ongoing task load on event-based PM performance in autistic adults. The results support the neurodiversity perspective of ASD as a highly heterogeneous population which is not necessarily characterized by reduced PM performance.
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