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Age effects in prospective memory performance within older adults: the paradoxical impact of implementation intentions

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Abstract

This study investigated age effects in prospective memory performance within older adults. The first aim was to explore this issue by examining event- and time-based prospective memory performance in two age groups: young-old (60–75 years) and old-old adults (76–90 years). Moreover, this study for the first time investigated whether forming implementation intentions could be used to improve prospective memory in young-old and old-old adults. Results showed a general effect of age in prospective memory performance for both task types. In addition, no general effect of implementation intentions in prospective memory performance across both task types and age groups was found. However, testing implementation intention effects separately for both age groups revealed that the formation of implementation intentions enhanced prospective memory only for the young-old adults, but did not substantially affect the performance in the time-based task and even impaired it in the event-based task for the old-old adults. Findings indicate that the formation of implementation intentions might be a powerful memory strategy for young-old adults, but not for the very old.

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Notes

  1. Applying an alternative analytical strategy suggested by an anonymous reviewer we z-standardized prospective memory scores and conducted an overall 2 (age) × 2 (instruction) × 2 (PM task) ANOVA which confirmed the critical age x instruction condition interaction (F(1,67) = 3.9, p ≤ 0.05).

  2. We acknowledge an anonymous reviewer for raising this issue.

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Acknowledgment

We are thankful for Anita Mahler’s assistance in the data collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany

    Katharina Marlene Schnitzspahn & Matthias Kliegel

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  1. Katharina Marlene Schnitzspahn
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  2. Matthias Kliegel
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Correspondence to Katharina Marlene Schnitzspahn.

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Schnitzspahn, K.M., Kliegel, M. Age effects in prospective memory performance within older adults: the paradoxical impact of implementation intentions. Eur J Ageing 6, 147–155 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-009-0116-x

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