The Importance of On-going Concurrent Activities as a Function of Age in Time- and Event-based Prospective Memory

d’Ydewalle, Géry; Luwel, Koen; Brunfaut, Els

doi:10.1080/713752309

Cited by 58 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The argument is that time-based tasks require more self-initiated activity than do event-based tasks, and the ®nding is that the former show greater age-related decrements than the latter (Einstein et al, 1995;McDaniel and Einstein, 1992). However a recent study by d' Ydewalle et al (1999) did not ®nd a greater age deterioration with time-based compared to event-based PM. Other results include the ®ndings that increased task complexity and an increase in the number of PM targets exacerbates the age decrement M antyl a, 1994;Park et al, 1997) and that the age decrement is also ampli®ed as the retrospective memory component of the PM task increases in dif®culty (Einstein and McDaniel, 1996).…”

mentioning

confidence: 80%

Virtual week and actual week: Age‐related differences in prospective memory

Rendell

Craik

2000

Applied Cognitive Psychology

316

369

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Several previous studies have shown that whereas young adults perform better than older adults on prospective memory (PM) tasks in the laboratory, this superiority is often reversed in real-life PM tasks. The present studies investigated this paradox by creating a laboratory task in the form of a board game (Virtual Week) that mimicked many features of daily living. It was hypothesized that older adults might use strategies derived from their more structured lives to outperform young adults on the board game. However, contrary to our prediction, it was found that younger adults were superior. In Experiment 2 we had participants perform very similar PM tasks in real life (Actual Week), and found that now the older adults were generally superior to their younger counterparts. Possible reasons are discussed for this striking age-related difference between laboratory-based and naturalistic PM tasks.The present report is concerned with age-related differences in prospective memory (PM) performance, and how these differences are modi®ed by the setting in which testing takes place. Schon®eld (1982) drew researchers' attention to possible declines in PM with increasing age from young to older adulthood. In particular he suggested that older people have dif®culty`remembering to remember' and cited some earlier work of his own (reported by Welford, 1958) in support of this suggestion. Interestingly, in the same volume, Moscovitch (1982) reported an informal study in which participants of various ages were asked to phone the laboratory from home at various designated times; in this case the older adults outperformed their younger counterparts Ð a result directly opposing Schon®eld's suggestion. However, it seemed that the older participants in Moscovitch's study performed well largely through their greater use of external aids and reminders. Subsequent research has generally shown that older adults do perform less well than younger adults in laboratory tests of PM, but the few studies carried out in naturalistic settings have tended to ®nd an age-related improvement in PM performance. The studies described in the present article explored this possible difference between PM in the laboratory and in real life.Adult age differences in laboratory-based PM tasks are reasonably well documented at the present time. Initial reports suggested that age-related differences were slight (e.g. Einstein and McDaniel, 1990), but subsequent studies have usually found that performance declines with increasing age. Craik (1983, 1986) suggested that older adults have dif®culty with cognitive tasks that require a lot of self-initiated mental activity, and in line

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 80%

Virtual week and actual week: Age‐related differences in prospective memory

Rendell

Craik

2000

Applied Cognitive Psychology

316

369

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Though the recent literature suggests to us that that belief is no longer current (D'Ydewalle, Luwel, & Brunfaut, 1999), we nevertheless tested the inference of greater age related ''decline'' of time-based rather event-based prospective memory. To that effect, a time-based prospective memory construct was operationalized as performance on the self-injections and going-tobed subtasks (equally weighted).…”

Section: Event-based Versus Time-based Prospective Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Remembering the Past and Foreseeing the Future while Dealing with the Present: A Comparison of Young Adult and Elderly Cohorts on a Multitask Simulation of Occupational Activities

Guimond

Braun

Rouleau

et al. 2006

Experimental Aging Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Thirty-five young adult and 38 elderly cybernauts, matched for education, sex, alcohol consumption, and time/day of computer use were compared on a computerized simulation of professional activities of daily living (ADLs). The program quantified performance in terms of speed and accuracy on four major constructs: (1) planning (a 30-item office party script); (2) prospective memory (injections, sleep, phone); (3) working memory (PASAT, D2, and CES analogs); and (4) retrospective memory. Participants had to organize an office party, self inject insulin and go to bed at requisite times of day, do "office work" at unpredictable times of day, and answer the phone that blinked but did not ring (near threshold stimulus). The elderly were markedly and equally impaired on all four constructs (F = 24.3, p < .000). The elderly were also equally and markedly impaired on slave and central executive systems (c.f. Baddeley's model) and on event-based and time-based prospective memory (c.f. McDaniel's model)-findings arguing against a "frontal" model of cognitive decline. This supports Salthouse's concept of a "general factors" decline in normal aging due to diffuse deterioration of the brain. On the other hand, as expected from previous findings, the balance of omissiveness/commissiveness was significantly increased in the elderly sample's error profile. Furthermore, the balance of speed and accuracy was significantly increased in the elderly. This defines limits of the "general factors" model. The elderly also markedly underused a clock icon which had to be clicked on to get the virtual time of day necessary for integrating all the required actions. Prospective memory explained 11% of the aging variance despite partialing out of the three other constructs, making it appear as a golden standard of sensititivity to normal aging-though perhaps provided it be implemented in a distracting, multitask, strategically demanding context.

show abstract

“…Theorists in the area of prospective memory have suggested that different cognitive demands are made by these two conditions by showing differential effects of normal aging on time-and event-based prospective memory tasks (Einstein et al, 1995;Park et al, 1997;d'Ydewalle et al, 1999d'Ydewalle et al, , 2001Maylor, 2002; for a recent review see Henry et al, 2004). For example, Einstein et al (1995) introduced a laboratory paradigm to examine time-and event-based prospective memory and found a significant age-related decline on the time-based task in which participants had to press a function key every 10 min while they were engaged in a continuous memory span task, but not in the event-based task in which they had to press a key when prospective cues were presented during the memory span task.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%