Methodological Considerations in Prospective Person Memory

This chapter provides an overview of the methodology and findings in the field of prospective person memory. Prospective person memory refers to one's ability to search for and locate a missing or wanted person. There are cases of missing or wanted persons being found as a result of prospective person memory; however, the overall percentage of people found as a result of prospective person memory is rather low. Research has focused on developing methods to examine the process of prospective person memory to improve sighting rates. Two methods have primarily been used to understand prospective person memory: lab simulations and field-based studies. In lab simulations, participants are on the lookout for missing or wanted people while completing an ongoing task. The ongoing task simulates a real-world task (e.g., grocery store shopping). Field-based studies attempt to simulate a real-life missing persons search while gathering data on sighting rates of a hypothetically missing or wanted person. When a missing person is placed in the field even in relatively close duration (e.g., 24 + hours later) and location (e.g., on a large college campus), sighting rates tend to be near floor levels. Finally, successful prospective person memory requires that a set of difficult processes be completed. In order to understand any one process, each of the others must be controlled for or measured in research studies.