Habitual prospective memory and aging: Remembering intentions and forgetting actions

Routine or habitual prospective memory tasks (e.g., taking medication) have the potential for creating conclusions regarding whether or not an action has already been performed. We del eloped a laboratory paradigm for examini ng the kinds of processes thought to be operating in these kinds of tasks. Younger and older participants were asked to perform an action once and onl y once on each of 11 trials. The results show ed that age and divided atten tion contributed to both omission and repetition errors. This new paradigm reveals memory failures in a habitual prospective memory task, and the,resu lts demonstrate that older adults ale particularly susceptible ro these mem ory problems.