SELF-REPORTS ON MEMORY FUNCTIONING IN A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF THE OLDEST-OLD - RELATION TO CURRENT, PROSPECTIVE, AND RETROSPECTIVE PERFORMANCE

Self-evaluation of memory performance, one aspect of metamemory, may b e an important indicator of concurrent, retrospective, or future decli ne in memory functioning. The relationships among self-evaluations, co gnition, and outcome were investigated in the OCTO study, a longitudin al, population-based panel of the oldest old. Using concurrent data, r esults indicated that overall cognitive ability, depression, gender, a nd education were associated with self-reports of memory for the entir e sample. The relation of perception of decline to actual decline was also examined. Self-reported decline over a 2-year period was associat ed with actual decline in performance on three tests of memory. Finall y, self-reported memory function war, investigated as an indicator of future cognitive decline and diagnosis of dementia. These self-evaluat ions predicted decline on specific tests of memory over 2 years and su bsequent diagnosis of dementia after 2 and 4 years. The amount of vari ance accounted for by self-evaluations, however, was relatively small, suggesting that complaints reflect different processes, only one of w hich is the pathological decline involved in dementia.