ix ixSUMMARY Prospective memory – a

ix
ix
SUMMARY
Prospective memory – also known as remembering to remember – is a process to
remember to carry out future actions (Cha
steen, Park, & Schwartz, 2001). Prospective
memory tasks require a person to
remember specific information (
what
) for a specific
retrieval cue (
when
) without an explicit demand for th
e information to be retrieved
(Craik, 1986). Although age-re
lated declines might have
been predicted in the
performance of prospective memory tasks,
research studies ha
ve generated mixed
findings (e.g., Light, 1991). A source of the
conflicting findings appears to be related to
the type of cues available at retrieval, as
well as the types of tasks used to investigate
prospective memory such that some retrie
val cues (e.g., event-based) and some tasks
(e.g., familiar) provide more environmental support than others.
People construct plans in the prospectiv
e memory process when they establish
cues for
how
they will remember an intention by considering
what
(the action) needs to
be remembered and
when
(the retrieval context) it needs
to be remembered (Ellis, 1996).
The development of an effective plan would
be critical in the perf
ormance of a complex
prospective memory task; complexity in th
is case is defined as remembering multiple
subtasks at different times.
Previous research studies have found ag
e-related declines in planning for novel
complex prospective memory tasks (Kliegel,
Martin, & Moor, 2003;
Kliegel, McDaniel,
& Einstein, 2000). However, participants
may develop more effective plans for a
familiar task because their experience provi
des them with a better understanding of the
goals of the task and how to achieve thos
e goals (Martin & Ewert, 1997). Age-related
declines also have been observed in the pe
rformance of a familiar complex prospective
memory task (Craik & Bialystok, in press)
. Although this finding was interpreted in
x
x
terms of poor planning, the study did not directly
measure plan development. Thus it is
unclear whether the source of the age-related
declines in planning occurred during plan
development, plan implementation, or both.