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Memory failure predicted by attention lapsing and media multitasking
Open accessAbstract
With the explosion of digital media and technologies, scholars, educators and the public have become increasingly vocal about the role that an 'attention economy' has in our lives 1. The rise of the current digital culture coincides with longstanding scientific questions about why humans sometimes remember and sometimes forget, and why some individuals remember better than others 2-6. Here we examine whether spontaneous attention lapses-in the moment 7-12, across individuals 13-15 and as a function of everyday media multitasking 16-19-negatively correlate with remembering. Electroencephalography and pupillometry measures of attention 20,21 were recorded as eighty young adults (mean age, 21.7 years) performed a goal-directed episodic encoding and retrieval task 22. Trait-level sustained attention was further quantified using task-based 23 and questionnaire measures 24,25. Using trial-to-trial retrieval data, we show that tonic lapses in attention in the moment before remembering, assayed by posterior alpha power and pupil diameter, were correlated with reductions in neural signals of goal coding and memory, along with behavioural forgetting. Independent measures of trait-level attention lapsing mediated the relationship between neural assays of lapsing and memory performance, and between media multitasking and memory. Attention lapses partially account for why we remember or forget in the moment, and why some individuals remember better than others. Heavier media multitasking is associated with a propensity to have attention lapses and forget.
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“numerous studies showed that media multitasking behavior could detrimentally affect cognitive ability, such as attention and memory (7–9).”
From Media multitasking, depression, and anxiety of college students: Serial mediating effects of attention control and negative information attentional bias (2022) · cites this paper as [8]
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“This work provides a neurobiological basis for previous findings in humans that correlated pre-retrieval brain states with memory performance.”
From Infraslow histaminergic dynamics govern priming states to gate moment-to-moment memory accessibility (2026) · cites this paper as [32]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Madore, K. P., Khazenzon, A. M., Backes, C. W., Jiang, J., Uncapher, M. R., Norcia, A. M., & Wagner, A. D.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Corresponding author
- Madore, Kevin P.
- Wagner, Anthony D.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2020-10-28
- Volume
- 587
- Issue
- 7832
- Pages
- 87-91
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- PMC
- PMC7644608
- OpenAlex
- W3095623676
- Cited by
- 184
- References
- 51
- Citations by year
- 2026: 39 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 10.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (R01AG065255, F32AG059341)
- National Institute of Mental Health (R56MH111672)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Mind wandering and attention
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
- Keywords
- attentional lapses, media multitasking, memory failure, episodic memory, forgetting, sustained attention, pupil size, individual differences in memory, attention economy, digital media
- MeSH terms
- Memory Consolidation, Adolescent, Adult, Attention, Electroencephalography, Female, Goals, Humans, Male, Memory, Internet, Young Adult
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