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

Abstract

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

Efeitos de um programa de estimulação cognitiva multidisciplinar intergeracional

“…As a results, the elderly participants that were trained used more of the strategies that they were taught. In the present study, much like in Yassuda's study, it was observed that during the associative learning test, performance results were better among the elderly than among adults after the stimulus, which corroborates the findings of Rendel & Craik 31 , which showed that, through the use of associative strategies and the repetition of information, the elderly were shown to be more efficient.…”

Event-Based Prospective Remembering in a Virtual World

“…Shallice & Burgess, 1991), or several days (e.g. Rendell & Craik, 2000). Like the typical laboratory PM task, EVET has an ongoing task of navigation around the virtual building.…”

“…A range of studies have used more naturalistic settings, many of which have focused on the age-prospective memory paradox in which older people appear to outperform younger people on PM tasks in the naturalistic setting but not in a laboratory setting (e.g. Bailey et al, 2010;Rendell & Craik, 2000). In these settings, the participant's actions do determine when and how a PM cue is encountered.…”

“…Farimond, Knight & Titov, 2006), or laboratory simulations (e.g. Rendell & Craik, 2000;Craik & Bialystok, 2006). However, the Farimond et al (2006) simulated shopping task lacks an ongoing task and the authors acknowledge that limitation.…”

Prospective memory tasks related to goals and concerns are rated as more important by both young and older adults

“…A second, minor aim of our study was to examine the oftstated claim that older adults are more motivated to perform prospective memory tasks than younger adults, that is, that age is positively correlated with perceived task importance (e.g., Patton andMeit 1993, Phillip et al 2008;Rendell and Craik 2000). This higher motivation in older adults might be expected for several reasons.…”