Dimensions of everyday memory in late adulthood

Abstract

Deficits in the cognitive performance of elderly adults in comparison to that of younger adults are well-documented. Although many researchers have observed that elderly adults appear to function competently in their normal environments, few systematic studies support that claim. As a first step toward understanding the apparent discrepancy between laboratory and real-world performance, elderly adults completed a self-report “everyday memory” questionnaire, along with measures of health and activity. Factor-analysis procedures revealed five underlying dimensions of everyday memory; these dimensions were interpreted in information processing terms to provide a conceptual framework for understanding the underlying mechanisms. Basic attention processes appeared to be the “proximal cause” of many common everyday memory failures. Contributions of gender and health status to everyday memory functioning were also examined. Higher incidence of illness and prescription drug use among elderly men was associated with a higher incidence of encoding failures than among elderly women.