AGING AND PROSPECTIVE MEMORY - EXAMINING THE INFLUENCES OF SELF-INITIATED RETRIEVAL-PROCESSES

Past research has frequently failed to find age differences in prospec tive memory. This article tested the possibility that age differences would be more likely to emerge on a prospective memory task that was h igh in self-initiated retrieval. In the 1st experiment, participants w ere asked to perform an action every 10 min (a time-based task presume d to be high in self-initiated retrieval); in the 2nd experiment, part icipants were asked to perform an action whenever a particular word wa s presented (an event-based task presumed to be relatively low in self -initiated retrieval). Age differences were found with the time-based task but not with the event-based task. This pattern of age difference s was again found in a 3rd experiment in which a new experimental proc edure was used and the nature of the prospective memory task was direc tly varied. Generally, the results suggest that self-initiated retriev al processes are an important component of age-related differences acr oss both retrospective and prospective memory tasks.