CHANGES IN EVENT-BASED PROSPECTIVE MEMORY ACROSS ADULTHOOD

Conflicting results in the literature raise the possibility of a nonmo notonic relationship between adult age and event-based prospective mem ory performance. In this study, young (n = 45, mean age = 20), middle aged (n = 56; mean age = 59), and elderly (rt = 59; mean age = 76) vol unteers were shown slides of famous people. The background task was to name each face while the prospective memory task was to mark the tria l number if the person was wearing glasses. Although the stimuli were selected to favor the older participants, the proportion of prospectiv e memory responses to target events declined monotonically with increa sing age (.77, .62, and .26, for the young, middle-aged, and elderly, respectively). Analysis of the prospective memory data in terms of haz ard functions for the first failure and the first success also reveale d some significant age deficits. The elderly group reported thinking l ess about the prospective memory component than the young and middle-a ged groups. Also, the elderly group was less likely to blame the deman ds of the background task for their prospective memory failures than t he young and middle-aged groups. However, age differences in prospecti ve memory performance remained significant after controlling (in separ ate analyses) for past experience (hazard functions), memory for the t ask instructions, self-rated thoughts, and reasons for failure. The re sults are discussed in relation to work on goal neglect, and possible explanations for the conflicting results in the literature are present ed.