title: Age-related effects in prospective memory are modulated by ongoing task complexity and relation to target cue.
abstract: Two experiments examined the puzzling variation in the age-related patterns for event-based prospective memory tasks. Both experiments involved a famous faces ongoing task with a feature of the famous face as the target for the prospective memory task. In Experiment 1, a substantial age deficit was found on the prospective memory task when the cue was nonfocal (wearing glasses) to the ongoing task, replicating previous research, but this deficit was significantly reduced with a focal cue (first name John). In Experiment 2, the prospective memory cue (wearing glasses) was held constant and the demands of the ongoing task of naming faces were varied. The substantial age differences found with a nonfocal cue were eliminated when the ongoing task was made less challenging. The findings help reconcile the divergent age-related findings reported in the literature.
authors: Australian Catholic University, Fitzroy Vic 3065, Australia. p.rendell@patrick.acu.edu.au
authors: Peter G
authors: PG
authors: Rendell
authors: Mark A
authors: MA
authors: McDaniel
authors: Robert D
authors: RD
authors: Forbes
authors: Gilles O
authors: GO
authors: Einstein
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003463:Cues; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology