Previous studies report that monitoring the passing of time by checking a clock either frequently or strategically (immediately before a target time) improves the likelihood of remembering to perform a planned intention at a specific time (i.e., time-based prospective memory [TBPM]). Critically, strategicness of clock-checking is usually measured as the number of clock-checks during the last time interval before the target time—an operationalization where strategicness actually intertwines with absolute frequency of clock-checking and may not properly account for age effects in TBPM performance. To disentangle the respective contribution of frequent versus strategic clock-checking to the age-related decrease in TBPM performance, we propose a new, more fine-grained indicator of strategicness (i.e., relative clock-checking), which accounts for interindividual differences in the total frequency of clock-checking (i.e., absolute clock-checking). In this study, 223 participants from an adult lifespan sample (age range = 19–86, M = 45.61, SD = 17.24; 70% women) had to remember to push the ENTER key every 60 s while performing a two-back picture decision task. Together, relative and absolute clock-checking fully mediated the negative age effect on TBPM and explained 53.6% of the variance of TBPM performance. Complementary analyses revealed that both indicators were needed to fully mediate the effect of age on TBPM, but that strategic (i.e., relative) clock-checking was a stronger predictor of TBPM performance than absolute clock-checking. These results stress the importance of considering both aspects of clock-checking to investigate time monitoring in laboratory TBPM tasks and age effects therein, and provide avenues of intervention for improving older adults’ TBPM.
While objective memory performance in older adults was primarily shown to be affected by education as indicator of life course socioeconomic conditions, other life course socioeconomic conditions seem to relate to subjective memory complaints. However, studies differ in which life course stages were investigated. Moreover, studies have explored these effects in an isolated way, but have not yet investigated their unique effect when considering several stages of the life course simultaneously. This study, therefore, examined the respective influence of socioeconomic conditions from childhood up to late-life on prospective memory (PM) performance as an objective indicator of everyday memory as well as on subjective memory complaints (SMC) in older age using structural equation modeling. Data came from two waves of the Vivre-Leben-Vivere aging study (n=993, Mage=80.56). The results indicate that only socioeconomic conditions in adulthood significantly predicted late-life PM performance. PM performance was also predicted by age and self-rated health. In contrast, SMC in older age were not predicted by socioeconomic conditions at any stage of the life course but were predicted by level of depression. In line with the cognitive reserve hypothesis, present results highlight the significance of education and occupation (adulthood socioeconomic conditions) for cognitive functioning in later life.
Identifying the neurocognitive mechanisms that lead individuals remembering to execute an intention at the right moment (prospective memory, PM) and how such mechanisms are influenced by the features of that intention is a fundamental theoretical challenge. In particular, the functional contribution of subcortical regions to PM is still unknown. This study was aimed at investigating the role of the medial subdivision of the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus (mMDT) in PM, with particular focus on the processes that are mediated by the projections from/to this structure. We analysed the performance of a patient (OG) with a right-sided lesion involving the mMDT in a series of PM tasks that varied for focality (i.e., overlapping of processes for the PM and ongoing tasks) and emotional valence of the stimuli, comparing the patient's performance with that of a control group. We found that the mMDT damage led to deficits in PM that were modulated by focality and emotional valence. OG indeed showed: a greater cost in the ongoing performance when a non-focal PM task was added; a slowing down in retrieving the intentions, in particular when these were associated with focal PM cues; an abnormal performance in the task with positive PM cues. Our findings provide evidence of a contribution of mMDT to PM and suggest a modulation of prefrontal-dependent strategic monitoring and a possible interaction with the limbic structures in the integration of emotion and PM processes. They also give support to the still controversial idea that connections with the perirhinal cortex mediate familiarity-based recognition.
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