Time-of-day affects prospective memory differently in younger and older adults.
The goal of this study was to investigate the impact of circadian arousal on prospective memory performance as a function of age. We tested a younger (18-34 years) and an older group (56-95 years) of participants on- and off-peak with regard to their circadian arousal patterns in a computer-based laboratory experiment. For the prospective memory task, participants had to press a particular key whenever specific target words appeared in an ongoing concreteness-judgment task. The results showed that prospective memory performance was better on- than off-peak in younger but not older participants. Younger participants consistently outperformed older participants in all conditions. We conclude that prospective remembering underlies time-of-day effects which most likely reflect controlled processes.
a Institute of Psychology and Center for Cognition, Learning and Memory , University of Bern , Switzerland.
Nicolas
N
Rothen
a Institute of Psychology and Center for Cognition, Learning and Memory , University of Bern , Switzerland.
Beat
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3303-6854
B
Meier
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011897:Random Allocation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
Intention memory; aging; circadian arousal; monitoring; spontaneous retrieval; time-of-day