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Cross-sectional studies have suggested age-related differences in decision-making competence, but these differences may also reflect cohort-related effects. We present a longitudinal study of age-related changes over 5 years in older adults (aged 60-85) for 3 important aspects of decision-making competence: resistance to framing, applying decision rules, and resistance to sunk costs. The findings show small age-related longitudinal declines in resistance to framing but no decline in applying decision rules or resistance to sunk costs. The results also indicate that individuals' decision-making competence after 5 years is significantly related to their initial decision-making competence assessment and that the contribution of crystallized abilities to decision making in older adults is greater than previously thought. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Age-related differences in sensory functioning, processing speed, and working memory have been identified as three significant predictors of the age-related performance decline observed in complex ...

Demands involving the scheduling and interleaving of multiple activities have become increasingly prevalent, especially for women in both their paid and unpaid work hours. Despite the ubiquity of everyday requirements to multitask, individual and gender-related differences in multitasking have gained minimal attention in past research. In two experiments, participants completed a multitasking session with four gender-fair monitoring tasks and separate tasks measuring executive functioning (working memory updating) and spatial ability (mental rotation). In both experiments, males outperformed females in monitoring accuracy. Individual differences in executive functioning and spatial ability were independent predictors of monitoring accuracy, but only spatial ability mediated gender differences in multitasking. Menstrual changes accentuated these effects, such that gender differences in multitasking (and spatial ability) were eliminated between males and females who were in the menstrual phase of the menstrual cycle but not between males and females who were in the luteal phase. These findings suggest that multitasking involves spatiotemporal task coordination and that gender differences in multiple-task performance reflect differences in spatial ability.

Although previous studies investigated the relationship between general cognitive abilities and decision making, few have characterized specific cognitive abilities underlying decision-making compe ...

In this longitudinal study, we examined time keeping in relation to working memory (WM) development. School-aged children completed two tasks of WM updating and a time monitoring task in which they indicated the passing of time every 5 min while watching a film. Children completed these tasks first when they were 8 to 12 years old and then 4 years later when they were 12 to 16 years old. Time keeping in early adolescence showed a different pattern of outcome measures than 4 years earlier, with reduced clock checking and increased timing error. However, relative changes in WM development moderated these adverse effects. Adolescents with greater relative gains in WM development were better calibrated than participants with less developing WM functions. We discuss these findings in relation to individual and developmental differences in executive control functions and socioemotionally driven reward seeking.

This study examined metamemory in relation to three basic executive functions (set shifting, working memory updating, and response inhibition) measured as latent variables. Young adults (Experiment 1) and middle-aged adults (Experiment 2) completed a set of executive functioning tasks and the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ). In Experiment 1, source recall and face recognition tasks were included as indicators of objective memory performance. In both experiments, analyses of the executive functioning data yielded a two-factor solution, with the updating and inhibition tasks constituting a common factor and the shifting tasks a separate factor. Self-reported memory problems showed low predictive validity, but subjective and objective memory performance were related to different components of executive functioning. In both experiments, set shifting, but not updating and inhibition, was related to PRMQ, whereas source recall showed the opposite pattern of correlations in Experiment 1. These findings suggest that metamemorial judgments reflect selective effects of executive functioning and that individual differences in mental flexibility contribute to self-beliefs of efficacy.

The factorial structure of the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ; Smith et al., 2000) was examined in a Swedish population based sample (N= 540, age range; 35–90 years). Conc ...

In two experiments, we examined the relation between gaze control and recollective experience in the context of face recognition. In Experiment 1, participants studied a series of faces, while thei ...

In two experiments, metamemorial differences between prospective and retrospective memory performance were examined. Participants in Experiment 1 were recruited through newspaper advertisements and comprised middle-aged women who experienced exceptional problems in prospective remembering. Experiment 2 involved self-reporters and nonreporters of retrospective memory problems, who were selected from a large population-based sample of middle-aged adults. In both experiments, memory performance was assessed by using a variety of tasks, including five retrospective memory tasks and three prospective memory tasks that varied in level of realism and retrieval support. In both experiments, there were selective differences in memory performance, so that participants who experienced (retrospective or prospective) memory problems showed impaired performance in prospective, but not in retrospective, memory tasks. These findings suggest that memory for future intentions provides a more sensitive task criterion than does memory for past events for assessing individual differences in self-reports of episodic memory problems. Task-specific differences in reliance on frontally mediated executive processes might underlie these differences.

Gender biases in children’s memory for expected and unexpected objects in real-world settings.

Age-related differences in prospective memory were investigated in a population-based sample of healthy adults aged 35 to 80 years (N = 1,000). Participants were screened on a variety of demographic, psychological, and biological variables, including (a) subjective and objective assessment of health status; (b) information about socioeconomic background; and (c) extensive examination of basic cognitive functions. the prospective memory task was incidental and relatively realistic in the sense that the participants were asked to remind the experimenter to sign a paper after a 2-hour test session. Results indicated an overall deterioration of prospective memory performance across age. Furthermore, age-related differences in prospective memory were observed even when differences in the selected background variables were taken into consideration.

Components of recollective experience were examined in relation to cue effectiveness by presenting subjects with their own or someone else's associations as retrieval cues. When recalling an item, subjects indicated whether they consciously recollected its prior occurrence ("remembering") or recalled it on some other basis, in the absence of conscious recollection ("knowing"). The results showed that cue compatibility (self-generated vs. someone else's cues) and retention interval (immediate vs. delayed test) selectively impaired retention accompanied by recollective experience, as measured by remember responses, but had reduced effects in the absence of recollective experience, as measured by know responses. The results are discussed in terms of variables dissociating judgments of recollective experience.

The objective of this study was to examine whether an increased activation of knowledge structures facilitates memory for future actions. Priming effects were manipulated by giving subjects a category fluency task for half of the target categories used in the subsequent prospective memory task. In this task, younger and older adults performed an action whenever an instance of a given semantic category occurred in the context of a free association task. The degree of retrieval support was varied by using typical and atypical category instances as targets. Although reliable priming effects were observed for both age groups, the magnitude of priming interacted with the degree of retrieval support. Older adults showed priming effects for typical targets only, whereas the opposite pattern of results was obtained for younger adults. These findings indicate that, in addition to retrieval-related factors, the operations performed at the time of planning also contribute to optimal prospective remembering.

This study examined time-based prospective memory performance in relation to age, monitoring strategy, response accuracy, and dual-task demands. Young, middle-aged and older adults (N = 115) completed a prospective memory task, in which they indicated the passing of time every 5 min while listening to a short story (low task demands) or completing a series of cognitive tasks (high task demands). Young and older adults showed similar patterns of monitoring behavior, with low rates of clock checking during the early phase of each 5-min interval, followed by linearly accelerating monitoring functions. However, to obtain the same level of prospective memory performance older adults needed more frequent clock checks than young adults. Furthermore, older adults' compensatory monitoring strategy was associated with an additional cost in primary task performance. Finally, increased primary task demands shifted age differences in prospective memory from monitoring frequency to response accuracy. These findings suggest that goal-directed behavior requires efficient task coordination and resource allocation, and that age-related differences in time-based prospective memory should be evaluated by using multiple outcome measures.

A number of patient studies suggest that impairments in frontal lobe functions are associated with disorders in temporal information processing. One implication of these findings is that subjective experience of time should be related to executive functions regardless of etiology. In two experiments, we examined sense of time in relation to components of executive functioning in healthy children and adults. In Experiment 1, children between 8 to 12 years completed six experimental tasks that tapped three components of executive functioning: inhibition, updating, and mental shifting. Sense of time was examined in a duration judgment task in which participants reproduced stimulus durations between 4 to 32 s. In Experiment 2, adult participants completed the time reproduction task under varying concurrent task demands. Both experiments showed selective effects in that time reproduction errors were related to the inhibition and updating, but not to the shifting, components of executive functioning. However, the observed effects were modulated by task demands and age-related differences in cognitive competence. We conclude that individual differences in executive functioning are only weakly related to time reproduction performance in healthy children and adults.

This study examined time-based prospective memory performance in relation to individual and developmental differences in executive functioning. School-age children and young adults completed six experimental tasks that tapped three basic components of executive functioning: inhibition, updating, and mental shifting. Monitoring performance was examined in a time-based prospective memory task in which participants indicated the passing of time every 5 min while watching a movie. Separate analyses of the executive functioning data yielded a two-factor solution for both age groups, with the updating and inhibition tasks constituting a common factor and the shifting tasks constituting a separate factor. Both children and adults showed accelerating monitoring functions with low rates of clock checking during the early phase of each 5-min interval. However, compared with adults, children needed more clock checks for obtaining the same level of response accuracy. Executive functioning had selective effects on time-based prospective memory performance. In both children and adults, monitoring performance was related to the inhibition and updating components, but not to the shifting component, of executive functioning. We conclude that difficulties in temporary maintenance and updating of working memory contents may create discontinuities in sense of time, leading to an increased reliance on external cues for time keeping.

Age differences in source recall were investigated in a population-based sample of healthy adults aged 35 to 80 years (N = 1000). Participants, who were screened on a variety of demographic, psychological, and biological variables, studied facts about well-known and unknown persons that were presented in four different ways, depicting four different sources of item information. An age-related deterioration of both item and source recall was observed, with source recall being more impaired than item recall. Source error analyses revealed an increase of source amnesia in subjects aged 75-80 years. Individual differences in background variables, age, gender, and word comprehension were related to source recall of well-known items, whereas age and years of formal education were related to source recall of unknown items. Source amnesia was accentuated in the two oldest cohorts and related to word comprehension. The age-related tendency to forget the source even when the fact is retained is suggested to be a specific feature of cognitive aging.

Age differences in recollective experience were examined in two experiments in which younger and older adults used their self-generated associations as retrieval cues. When recalling an item, subjects indicated whether they consciously remembered its prior occurrence, or merely knew that it was presented previously. The results of both experiments showed that aging selectively impaired retention accompanied by recollective experience, as measured by remember responses, but had no effects in the absence of recollective experience, as measured by know responses. In Experiment 2, a similar pattern of data was obtained for a group of younger adults by increasing the rate of presentation at study. The results also indicated that judgments of recollective experience were related to type of encoding: Subjects who generated detailed associations reported higher levels of remember responses and lower levels of know responses than did subjects who generated fewer detailed associations. The results are discussed in terms of processes related to perceptual familiarity and contextual detail.

Younger and older participants generated one or three properties to a set of forty nouns. Immediately after, one week after, or three weeks after this generation phase, the participants received an incidental recall test, in which they were cued with their self-generated properties, and requested to recall the nouns. Although the younger adults recalled more nouns than the older participants in all conditions, both age groups exhibited an extremely high level of immediate recall. In addition, younger and older adults did not differ with respect to the forgetting rate, and both age groups recalled more nouns when three, as compared to one, properties were provided as cues. It is suggested that cue effectiveness is optimized both for younger and older adults when the cues describing the information encoded are compatible and distinctive. Finally, it is emphasized that the individual's idiosyncratic knowledge may serve an important function in attempts at optimizing memory performance of elderly people.

Mantyla & Nilsson (1983) recently presented a striking empirical phenomenon demonstrating a practically perfect recall of verbal materials encountered at one single trial and without specific instructions to learn the items. The purpose of the study to be presented in this article was to investigate whether older adults are capable of performing at the same high level of recall as younger adults did in the Mantyla & Nilsson study. Type of instructions and number of retrieval cues were included in the experimental design, in addition to the age factor. Although the results indicated a superior memory performance of younger adults as compared to older adults, the latter group of subjects demonstrated an extremely high level of recall as well. Both age groups showed quite similar recall patterns in the sense that no interaction effects between the age factor and the other independent variables were obtained. The data were discussed relative to qualitatively and quantitatively based explanations of age differences in memory.

This study explored age-related differences in item and source recall of enacted and nonenacted items in a sample of healthy adults between the ages of 35 and 80 years (N=1,000). Participants were screened on a variety of demographic, psychometric, and biological variables. They were presented with sentences (e.g., “Lift the book”) that they either read or enacted. They were then asked to recall the object of each stimulus sentence (item recall) and to identify its format of encoding (source recall). Age-related decrements were observed both in item and source memory, although age differences in source memory were more accentuated than in item memory. Further, the results indicated an overall impairment of source memory across age when individual differences in the demographic, psychometric, and biological variables were taken into consideration.

This experiment addressed the effects of prior knowledge on episodic face recognition in a community-based sample of healthy older adults from 75 to 96 years of age (N = 228). Subjects were presented with photographs of public Swedish individuals who attained their fame during the 1930s and 1940s, or during the 1980s. Results indicated an overall deterioration of face recognition performance across age. However, performance was higher with the dated than with the contemporary faces across the entire age range, suggesting that the ability to utilize prior knowledge in the context of face recognition is well preserved in very old age. Finally, a multiple regression analysis indicated that, among a variety of demographic, psychometric, and biological variables, age was the best predictor of face recognition performance.