An Internet study of prospective memory across adulthood.
In an Internet study, 73,018 18-79-year-olds were asked to "remember to click the smiley face when it appears." A smiley face was present/absent at encoding, and participants were told to expect it "at the end of the test"/"later in the test." In all 4 conditions, the smiley face occurred after 20 min of retrospective memory tests. Prospective remembering benefited at all ages from both prior target exposure and temporal uncertainty; moreover, it resembled working memory in its linear decline from young adulthood. The study demonstrates the power of Internet methodology to reveal age-related deficits in a single-trial prospective memory task outside the laboratory.
Logie
Robert H
RH
Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Maylor
Elizabeth A
EA
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012016:Reference Values; D012660:Semantics; D012984:Software; D014706:Verbal Learning; D055815:Young Adult