Prospective Memory Tasks in Aviation: Effects of Age and Working Memory - eScholarship

Prospective Memory Tasks in Aviation: Effects of Age and Working Memory Kathleen Van Benthem (kvbenthe@connect.carleton.ca) Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 0A3 Canada Chris M. Herdman (chris_herdman@carleton.ca) Visualization and Simulation Centre, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 0A3 Canada Jo-Anne LeFevre (jlefevre@connect.carleton.ca) Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 0A3 Canada Abstract Prospective memory is the ability to remember to perform acts in the future. Prospective memory is essential in the aviation domain because it supports a range of tasks including remembering to complete critical radio communications. A wide variety of literature reports that in the laboratory younger adults outperform older adults on many prospective memory tasks. In naturalistic settings however, older adults perform as well as or better than younger adults. It is suggested that lower working memory load from on-going background tasks, context cues and the habitual nature of the tasks are reasons for the improved performance by older adults in naturalistic settings. We tested this notion using a Cessna 172 aircraft simulator to examine radio communication task completion rates of 45 pilots (16 older and 29 younger participants). Individual measures of working memory were also collected. In contrast to the trends reported in the literature, we found that older pilots had significantly lower communication task completion rates than younger pilots in both the low and high working memory workload conditions. A multiple regression model identified age and working memory scores as the strongest individual predictors of prospective memory task performance in the low workload condition and working memory and recent pilot-in-command hours as significant predictors of performance in the high workload condition. Our results suggest that, even in a low workload condition, a naturalistic aviation context did not afford advantages to older pilots and that prospective memory task performance appears associated with age and working memory function. Keywords: prospective memory; applied cognitive science; working memory; aging; aviation. Introduction Prospective memory refers to the ability to remember to perform mental or physical acts in the future. The present research examined the prospective memory performance of older pilots (aged 51 to 76) and younger pilots (ages 26 to 50) in a naturalistic aviation-related setting. Existing literature on prospective memory and aging suggests that, in naturalistic settings, older and younger adults tend to perform similarly on measures of prospective memory (Einstein & McDaniel, 1990; Kvavilashvili & Fisher, 2007). In contrast, in laboratory settings, where prospective memory performance is tested using novel tasks, younger adults show better prospective memory performance than older adults (Craik & Bialystok, 2006). It has been suggested that in naturalistic settings older adults’ prospective memory performance might benefit from (a) the time- and event-based cues afforded by the environment or strategically created by the older adult, (b) a reduced working memory load in the on-going or background tasks, and/or (c) an increase in the importance older adults might place on remembering in the naturalistic tasks (Dismukes, 2010; Einstein & McDaniel, 1990; Kvavilashvili & Fisher, 2007). In comparison with young adults, older adults are believed to have reduced working memory capacity (Craik, Anderson, Kerr, & Li, 1995; Salthouse, 1994; 1996). As such, some authors have investigated the influence of reduced working memory demands experienced by older adults in everyday naturalistic environments and explored how these reduced demands might improve performance in prospective memory tasks. For example, Einstein and McDaniel (1990) addressed the issue of this explanation for age effects based on the ease of ongoing tasks by attempting to equate the background working memory requirements during laboratory tasks for older and younger participants. The reduction in working memory resource allocation for older adults did result in better performance in prospective memory tasks for older adults (as compared to the younger adults). Previous research pertaining to age and prospective memory can be classified according to the study variables of setting (laboratory vs. naturalistic), task (habitual vs. episodic), ongoing background working memory load (low or high), task cue (cued or non-cued) and task cue context (event-based vs. time-based). In a meta-analysis of prospective memory and aging, Uttl (2008) reported that younger adults tend to perform better on prospective memory tasks in most conditions, with the exception that older adults might demonstrate similar or better performance, as compared to younger adults, in naturalistic studies. It is important to note however, that when older adults performed as well as or better than younger participants the prospective memory tasks under investigation occurred in contexts of low working memory load, were habitual in nature and were associated with cues

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