Prospective Memory and Cognitive Aging

Abstract

Tasks that involve remembering to carry out future intentions (such as remembering to attend an appointment), and the cognitive processes that enable the completion of such tasks (such as planning), are referred to as prospective memory (PM). PM is important for promoting quality of life across many domains. For instance, failures in remembering to meet social commitments are linked to social isolation, whereas failures in remembering to fulfill occupational goals are linked to poorer vocational outcomes. Declines in PM functioning are of particular concern for older adults because of the strong links between PM and functional capacity. The relationship between age and PM appears to be complex, dependent on many factors. While some aspects of PM appear to hold up relatively well in late adulthood, others appear to show consistent age-related decline. Variability in age differences appears to partially reflect the fact that there are diverse types of PM tasks, which impose demands on a range of cognitive processes that are differentially affected by aging. Specifically, the level and type of environmental support associated with different PM task types appears to be a meaningful determinant of age-related effects. Given the worldwide changing age demographics, the interest in age-related effects on PM will likely intensify, and a primary focus will be how to optimize and maintain PM capacity for this population. This is already reflected in the increasing research on interventions focused on enhancing PM capacity in late adulthood, and points to important future directions in this area of study.

Event-Based but Not Time-Based Prospective Memory Is Related to Oral Health in Late Adulthood

“…Also important to inform potential interventions is to further establish the specificity of the relationship between event-based PM and oral health, and any role of broader neurocognitive resources in understanding this relationship. Although no significant associations emerged between any of the background cognitive measures and oral health in either study, PM may impose demands on many other neurocognitive resources not indexed here, including working memory and executive control [40]. Further work is therefore needed that includes additional neurocognitive assessments to gain a clearer understanding of the interplay between broader cognitive functioning, PM, and oral health.…”

Guidelines for the Development of Immersive Virtual Reality Software for Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology: The Development of Virtual Reality Everyday Assessment Lab (VR-EAL), a Neuropsychological Test Battery in Immersive Virtual Reality

“…Notably, the ecologically valid assessment of executive (i.e., planning and multitasking), attentional (i.e., selective visual, visuospatial, and auditory attention), and episodic memory processes is an equally important aim of VR-EAL. The relevant literature postulates that the everyday functioning of humans is dependent on cognitive abilities, such as attention, episodic memory, prospective memory, and executive functions (Higginson et al, 2000;Chaytor and Schmitter-Edgecombe, 2003;Phillips et al, 2008;Rosenberg, 2015;Mlinac and Feng, 2016;Haines et al, 2019). However, the assessment of these cognitive functions requires an ecologically valid approach to indicate the quality of the everyday functioning of the individual in the real world (Higginson et al, 2000;Chaytor and Schmitter-Edgecombe, 2003;Phillips et al, 2008;Rosenberg, 2015;Mlinac and Feng, 2016;Haines et al, 2019).…”

A Perceptual Approach to Aging: Latent Aging

“…Individuals use attention and language skills in their interaction with their environment (Franceschi et al, 2019;Cox et al, 2019). They record the information obtained from the environment in their memory (Haines et al, 2019;Hülür et al, 2019). Information obtained by visual memory becomes functional through reasoning and visuospatial abilities (Komanduri et al, 2019).…”