The efficiency of prospective memory (PM) typically increases from childhood to young adulthood and then decreases in later adulthood. The current study used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to examine the development of the neural correlates of processes associated with the detection of a PM cue, switching from the ongoing activity to the prospective task, retrieval of the intention from memory or task set configuration, and strategic monitoring of the environment. The study included 99 participants that were 7.5-83 years of age. Slow wave activity related to strategic monitoring was reliable across the lifespan suggesting that all ages were able to allocate attentional resources to facilitate PM. Additionally, components of the ERPs related to cue detection, switching, and task configuration were reliable across the lifespan, suggesting that similar processes contribute to PM at all ages. In children, PM errors may have resulted from a decoupling of processes supporting cue detection and switching from the ongoing activity to the prospective element of the task. In younger and older adults, PM errors appeared to result from the failure to detect PM cues in the environment. These findings lead to the conclusion that different processes may contribute to variation in PM across the lifespan.

Prospective memory performance follows an inverted U-shaped function across the lifespan. Findings on the relative contribution of purely prospective memory and retrospective memory processes within prospective memory to this trajectory are scarce and inconclusive. We analyzed age-related differences in prospective memory performance across the lifespan in a cross-sectional design including six age groups (N = 99, 7-83 years) and investigated possible mechanisms by experimentally disentangling the relative contributions of retrospective memory and purely prospective memory processes. Results confirmed the inverted U-shaped function of prospective memory performance across the lifespan. A significant interaction between process type and age group was observed indicating differential relative contributions of retrospective memory and purely prospective memory processes on the development of prospective memory performance. Our results showed that mainly the pure prospective memory processes within prospective memory lead to lower prospective memory performance in young children and old adults. Moreover, the relative contributions of the retrospective memory and purely prospective memory processes are not uniform at both ends of the lifespan, i.e., in later adulthood the purely prospective memory processes seem to determine performance to an even greater extent than in childhood. Nevertheless, age effects were also observed in the retrospective component which thus contributed to the prospective memory performance differences between the age groups.

Younger adults consistently outperform older adults in laboratory prospective memory tasks. This study examines the effectiveness of an intervention that familiarizes older adults with the sequence of ongoing events to compensate their reduced prospective memory performance. We compared performance and electrophysiological measures of an intervention group (N = 20, 69-83 years) receiving a familiarization intervention to an individually matched control group (N = 20). As ongoing activity a 2-back working memory task was administered. Neural correlates were studied using event related potentials (ERPs) and source localization (standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography). Behavioural data showed faster reaction times in correct prospective trials and fewer prospective false alarms in the familiarization intervention group. ERP analyses displayed differential patterns for the two groups and source localization measures distinctively presented group differences in prospective memory trials with the control group recruiting more resources for a successful prospective memory performance. Together our data support the hypothesis that the familiarity with the sequence of ongoing events increases prospective memory performance and that this might be based on a higher efficiency of attentional monitoring resources and evaluation processes in the intervention group.

The frequency of prospective and retrospective memory failures from six age groups was gathered using the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ). Objective performance measures were obtained with a laboratory prospective memory task. Findings revealed more prospective than retrospective memory complaints in all age groups except in young children. While overall reported memory failures were similar in the adult groups, fewer failures were reported for the two children groups. This might either be explained by a self-other rater bias or by the PRMQ not being well suited to assess memory failures of children. No correlations of complaints with performance measures were found in either age group except in older children for whom surprisingly more complaints were related to better performance. The frequency of prospective and retrospective memory failures from six age groups