In these studies, adult age differences in event-based prospective memory were examined using an adapted version of G.O. Einstein and M.A. McDaniel's (1990) task. In Experiments 1-3, we varied prospective cue specificity by assigning a specific target word or an unspecified word drawn from a given taxonomic category. In Experiment 3, we manipulated cue typicality by presenting low or high typicality target words. Results yielded positive effects of cue specificity on prospective performance. Age effects occurred when high typicality target words served as prospective cues (Exps. 1 and 3), but younger and older adults performed comparably with moderate and low typicality words (Exps. 2 and 3). Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that age accounted for a small but significant amount of variance in prospective memory, although the contribution of age was substantially reduced after statistically controlling for recognition memory. Implications of these data for current views on prospective remembering are discussed.

Ten older adults with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) were trained to recall everyday objects using the spaced-retrieval technique. Five persons had participated in a prior spaced-retrieval program (Cherry & Simmons-D'Gerolamo, 1999, Clinical Gerontologist, 20, 39-63). The authors retested these original participants to measure the long-term effectiveness of spaced-retrieval training. Five new participants were included for comparison purposes. During training, participants selected a target object from an array of items at increasingly longer retention intervals. To enhance the effectiveness of spaced-retrieval training, two original and two new participants were given a target object orientation task prior to training. Positive effects of prior experience occurred for most of the original participants. The orientation task enhanced memory for the target objects. Implications for memory remediation in late adulthood are considered.

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Four older adults with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) were trained to recall everyday objects using the spaced-retrieval technique. Two persons who had participated in a previous spaced-retrieval training program were retested here to provide new evidence on the long-term effectiveness of the training. Two others who had not been tested previously served as controls. Spaced-retrieval training consisted of six-hour-long sessions given on alternate days over a two-week period. On each trial, participants selected a designated object from an array of items at increasingly longer retention intervals. All participants showed positive effects of spaced-retrieval training across sessions, as reflected in fewer errors per trial and longer retention duration across sessions. There was little evidence of long-term effects of spaced-retrieval training in that the original and control participants performed comparably. Implications of these results for the long-term maintenance of memory training programs are discussed.

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