[Farrimond 06]

Farrimond S, Knight RG, Titov N. The effects of aging on remembering intentions: performance on a simulated shopping task. Applied Cognitive Psychology. 2006;20(4):533-555. Available at: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/acp.1202.

• abstract: task measuring memory for delayed intentions - memory search but not cue detection affected in older persons, no age specific effect on cue detection, capacity for self-initiated reinstatement of working memory is reduced in old age

• intro: Henry et al 2004 confirms that prospective memory is impaired in old and and that is is particularly evident on tasks that required effortful or strategic processing
• older persons specifically impaired on memory and attentional tasks that rely on effortful, conscious or controlled processing;
• Henry et al 04 found that older groups superior to younger groups on naturalistic time-based tasks, decline on laboratory tasks
• examined three aspects hypothesised to be sensitive to age: opportunity to learn instructions, familiarity with environment, presence of distractions; distinction b/w process of recognising a cue and recalling associated action (relies on self-initiated memory search)
• number of instructions and length of testing sessions kept at reasonable level

• study 1: Einsteing et al 97, Light et al 00, McDermot 04: older adults reduced capacity to make effortful searches through memory; memory search sometimes automatic when a strong contextual connection exists b/w cue and instruction (i.e. buy coffee at starbucks); sometimes cue is identified without conscious awareness;
• ability to control activity may compensate for reduced ability of older group to complete prospective tasks
• either one or three learning trials (cue and associated task) - hypothesised that 1-trial group would have disproportionate negative effect for older participants on more effortful process of recalling actions relative to their ability to recognise cues;
• virtual street used - speed with which they move along street recorded, and time on each page; cannot go backwards
• expected to recall task aloud in response to cue - correct action recorded
• 3 factor ANOVA - age x # learning trials x task component (RM - cue and task); sig. main effect for age, # learning trials, component, learning trial and component interaction, component x age interaction, age x learning trial x component interaction approached significance, time significant for age, not slower in 3-trial condition, no significant age x learning trial interaction, both groups more efficient when they had 3 learning trials
• older group less likely than younger group to recall task associated with cue, older group more affected than younger group when only had 1 learning trials; reduced opportunity for encoding, self-initiated memory search more difficult
• superiority of memory recall in younger persons, enhanced ability to learn instructions, older persons can perform as well as younger group when given enhanced opportunity to learning instructions.
• older persons tended to be about 3-4 min slower

• study 2: determine whether recognising cues and associated task is more difficult in unfamiliar environment for older people than younger people; assess how ageing affects vigilance and remembering in unfamiliar naturalistic environments
• possible that unfamiliar target would be easier to detect than familiar one; Einstein 90, McDaniel 93: unfamiliar words have been found to produce more reliable prospective remembering than familiar ones;
• also interested in # of instructions they were likely to remember, older people have more realistic appreciation of what they are likely to remember
• procedure used was same as in first study, except no practice session
• 3-factor ANOVA - age x familiarity x component (cues vs tasks RM); significant age and component main effects, no effect of familiarity, significant component x group interaction; older persons have more difficulty recalling actions than cues relative to younger group
• significant age effect for time/page, no familiarity effect, no age effect for page/location; suggested that participants tended to be less efficient in their movements around the unfamiliar street
• participants in both groups underestimated how much they would remember, trend towards the participants predicting a poorer performance in the unfamiliar street
• older persons not affected by unfamiliarity of the environment, neither speed nor accuracy of cue detection affected; environment might not have been sufficiently alien to cause differences in attentional strategies
• younger group was significantly more conservative in estimates of what they would actually achieve than the older adults, expectations of remembering shopping instructions do not decline with age

• study 3

• Tran Q, Calcaterra G, Mynatt E. How an Older and a Younger Adult Adopted a Cooking Memory Aid. Proc. Human-Computer Interaction International (HCII). 2005. Available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.78.3784&rep=rep1&type=pdf.

• McFarlane D, Latorella K. The Scope and Importance of Human Interruption in Human-Computer Interaction Design. Human-Computer Interaction. 2002;17(1):1-61. Available at: http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&doi=10.1207/S15327051HCI1701_1&magic=crossref||D404A21C5BB053405B1A640AFFD44AE3.