Department of Psychology, Clemson University, 418 Brackett Hall, Clemson, SC, 29634, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii at Hilo, Hilo, HI, USA.
BMC Geriatr. 2023 Oct 17;23(1):670. doi: 10.1186/s12877-023-04363-6.
Everyday memory problems are believed to increase with age, leading many researchers to focus on older ages when examining reports of memory lapses. However, real world memory lapses are ubiquitous across the adult lifespan, though less is known about the types of problems and their impacts at younger ages. The current study examined occurrence and impacts of memory lapses using daily diaries in a broad age range and whether characteristics of lapses varied across age, gender, or education level.
Using an 8-day daily diary protocol, 2,018 individuals (ages 25-91) provided reports of their experiences of two types of daily memory lapses (retrospective and prospective) as well as the impact those lapses had on their emotional and functional well-being that day. Using multilevel modeling, we examined the likelihood of reporting memory lapses and their impacts on daily life and whether these depended on age, gender, or education level.
Participants reported lapses on approximately 40% of days; retrospective memory lapses were significantly more likely than prospective lapses. Older ages and higher education level were related to greater likelihood of reporting retrospective lapses. Women (compared to men) were more likely to report prospective memory lapses. Women also tended to report greater impacts of their memory lapses. Lower education levels were related to greater impacts of memory lapses compared to higher education levels. Interestingly, age was not related to impacts of lapses.
Our results indicate that memory lapses are common across the lifespan and that those individuals more likely to report lapses are not necessarily those that experience the greatest impacts of those lapses on daily life. Additional work is needed to understand the daily experience of memory lapses and how they differentially affect individuals regardless of age, gender, and education.
Memory lapses are an important aspect of daily life across the lifespan and require measurement in an individual's real-world environments. Better measurement of these experiences will allow the development of more sensitive measures of changes in cognitive functioning that may impact an individual's ability to live independently.
人们普遍认为日常记忆问题会随着年龄的增长而增加，这导致许多研究人员在研究记忆失误报告时专注于老年人群体。然而，在现实生活中，记忆失误普遍存在于成年期，尽管人们对年轻时记忆问题的类型及其影响了解较少。本研究通过在广泛的年龄范围内使用日常日记来检查记忆失误的发生和影响，以及失误的特征是否因年龄、性别或教育程度而异。
使用 8 天的日常日记方案，2018 名（年龄 25-91 岁）参与者报告了他们在两种类型的日常记忆失误（回溯性和前瞻性）中的经历，以及这些失误对他们当天情绪和功能健康的影响。使用多层次建模，我们检查了报告记忆失误的可能性及其对日常生活的影响，以及这些是否取决于年龄、性别或教育程度。
参与者大约在 40%的日子里报告了失误；回溯性记忆失误的可能性明显高于前瞻性失误。较高的年龄和较高的教育程度与报告回溯性失误的可能性较大有关。与男性相比，女性更有可能报告前瞻性记忆失误。女性也倾向于报告记忆失误的更大影响。与较高的教育程度相比，较低的教育程度与记忆失误的更大影响有关。有趣的是，年龄与失误的影响无关。
我们的结果表明，记忆失误在整个生命周期中都很常见，那些更有可能报告失误的人不一定是那些在日常生活中经历失误最大影响的人。需要进一步的工作来了解记忆失误的日常体验，以及它们如何因人而异，而与年龄、性别和教育程度无关。
记忆失误是整个生命周期日常生活的一个重要方面，需要在个体的真实环境中进行测量。对这些体验的更好测量将有助于开发更敏感的认知功能变化测量方法，这可能会影响个体独立生活的能力。
