Schnitzspahn Katharina Marlene, Kliegel Matthias
Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany.
Eur J Ageing. 2009 Apr 29;6(2):147-155. doi: 10.1007/s10433-009-0116-x. eCollection 2009 Jun.
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.
本研究调查了老年人前瞻性记忆表现中的年龄效应。首要目标是通过考察两个年龄组（年轻老年人，60 - 75岁；高龄老年人，76 - 90岁）基于事件和基于时间的前瞻性记忆表现来探究这一问题。此外，本研究首次调查了形成执行意图是否可用于改善年轻老年人和高龄老年人的前瞻性记忆。结果显示，对于这两种任务类型，年龄在前瞻性记忆表现中具有总体效应。此外，未发现执行意图在两种任务类型和年龄组的前瞻性记忆表现中具有总体效应。然而，分别对两个年龄组测试执行意图效应发现，形成执行意图仅增强了年轻老年人的前瞻性记忆，但对高龄老年人基于时间的任务表现没有实质性影响，甚至在基于事件的任务中损害了其表现。研究结果表明，形成执行意图可能是年轻老年人强有力的记忆策略，但对高龄老年人并非如此。
