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Prospective memory, emotional valence and ageing

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Prospective memory, emotional valence and

ageing
a b c
Peter G. Rendell , Louise H. Phillips , Julie D. Henry , Tristan Brumby-
a a d
Rendell , Xochitl de la Piedad Garcia , Mareike Altgassen & Matthias
d
Kliegel
a
Australia Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia
b
Aberdeen University, Aberdeen, UK
c
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
d
Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Published online: 05 Oct 2010.

To cite this article: Peter G. Rendell , Louise H. Phillips , Julie D. Henry , Tristan Brumby-Rendell , Xochitl de
la Piedad Garcia , Mareike Altgassen & Matthias Kliegel (2011) Prospective memory, emotional valence and
ageing, Cognition & Emotion, 25:5, 916-925, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2010.508610

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 COGNITION AND EMOTION
2011, 25 (5), 916
925

BRIEF REPORT

Prospective memory, emotional valence and ageing

Peter G. Rendell
Australia Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia

Louise H. Phillips
Aberdeen University, Aberdeen, UK

Julie D. Henry
Downloaded by [Université de Genève] at 06:01 12 August 2013

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Tristan Brumby-Rendell and Xochitl de la Piedad Garcia

Australia Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia

Mareike Altgassen and Matthias Kliegel

Technische Universita
¨ t Dresden, Dresden, Germany

Emotional factors have been found to be an important influence on memory. The current study
investigated the influence of emotional salience and age on a laboratory measure of prospective
memory (PM); Virtual Week. Thirty young and 30 old adults completed Virtual Week, in which the
emotional salience of the tasks at encoding was manipulated to be positive, negative or neutral in
content. For event-based, but not time-based tasks, positivity enhancement in both age groups was
seen, with a greater number of positive PM tasks being performed relative to neutral tasks. There was
no negativity enhancement effect. Older adults showed generally poorer levels of PM, but they also
demonstrated greater beneficial effects of positive valence compared to young. These effects of
emotion on PM accuracy do not appear to reflect the retrospective component of the task as a different
pattern of emotion effects was seen on the recall of PM content. Results indicate that older adults’
difficulties in prospective remembering can be reduced where the tasks to be remembered are positive.

Keywords: Prospective memory; Emotional saliency; Emotional valence; Positivity enhancement;

Ageing; Event- and time-based.

Prospective memory (PM) is memory for future a specific action while being involved in an
intentions, and involves remembering to perform ongoing activity. Real-world PM tasks important

Correspondence should be addressed to: Peter G. Rendell, School of Psychology, Australian Catholic University, Locked bag
4115, Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia 3065. E-mail: peter.rendell@acu.edu.au
Support for this study was provided by a Discovery Project grant from the Australian Research Council.
We acknowledge the help of Trevor Daniels in programming Virtual Week.

# 2010 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business 916
http://www.psypress.com/cogemotion DOI:10.1080/02699931.2010.508610

for independent living include remembering to
take medication and turn off appliances. PM tasks
consist of distinct components: forming an inten-
tion, initiating the intention at the correct time,
and successfully remembering the content of the
intention (Kliegel, McDaniel, & Einstein, 2000).
Remembering the PM content is regarded as
the retrospective component and both forming
and carrying out intentions comprise the prospec-
tive component. In relation to ageing and PM,
contradictory findings have been identified. While
laboratory studies typically show age-related de-
cline, older participants generally outperform their
younger counterparts in naturalistic studies. This
Downloaded by [Université de Genève] at 06:01 12 August 2013
‘‘paradoxical’’ pattern was initially identified by
Rendell and Thompson (1999), and was con-
firmed in a meta-analysis (Henry, MacLeod,
Phillips, & Crawford, 2004). However it remains
unclear what specific factors of the task settings
are critical for determining the direction of age
effects (Phillips, Henry, & Martin, 2008).
One possibility is that the content of the
tests themselves may contribute to the paradox.
Laboratory tasks typically involve embedding a
PM task into another ongoing task. Such tasks
consist of highly abstract material with little
emotional salience, and this might influence age
differences (Rendell & Thomson, 1999). Natur-
alistic PM tasks involve a task being carried out
within the daily life of participants (Phillips et al.,
2008) and often contain an interpersonal compo-
nent, such as telephoning experimenters at spe-
cific times (Devolder, Brigham, & Pressley,
1990). For older adults, the socioemotional
salience of such activities may boost performance
on naturalistic PM tasks; in contrast, the abstract
nature of most laboratory-based PM tasks is
unlikely to provide such motivation. When the
PM task is irrelevant or has little emotional
connection for the participant, task motivation
may be reduced (Phillips et al., 2008).
Emotional salience as a determinant of age
effects is consistent with McDaniel and Einstein’s
(2000) multiprocess framework. In this model, PM
performance involves both automatic and stra-
tegic processes, the relative prominence of which
varies according to specific task demands. Any
VALENCE AND PROSPECTIVE MEMORY
manipulation that increases the strategic demands
of a PM task increases age-related difficulties. One
factor influencing age-related deficits in PM is
therefore the saliency of target events. Prior PM
studies that have investigated specific aspects of
target salience have supported this model, showing
that increased salience of the target event does
attenuate age deficits (e.g., Cohen, Dixon, Lind-
say, & Masson, 2003).
Emotional factors have been found to be an
important influence on PM. Depression is asso-
ciated with poor PM function (Altgassen, Kliegel,
& Martin, 2009). Further, a sad mood induction
led to reduced PM (Kliegel et al., 2005). In
addition to person-related mood effects on neutral
PM tasks, there are other possibilities for emotion

cognition interactions. Specifically, there may be
task-related effects of valence of the PM task itself.
Emotionally salient information is more likely to be
recalled and attended to than emotionally neutral
information (Murphy & Isaacowitz, 2008). Con-
sequently, increasing the emotional salience of the
PM task may be expected to improve task perfor-
mance for both young and old, as has been shown in
other cognitive domains.
However, whether age interacts with the valence
of information to influence cognitive performance
may depend on the tasks used. Some studies have
found that increasing the emotional salience of task
material reduces age deficits in cognitive domains
such as problem solving (Blanchard-Fields, Jahnke,
& Camp, 1995), and recognition memory
(Charles, Mather, & Carstensen, 2003), consistent
with a generally increased emotional enhancement
effect in late adulthood. Other studies suggest that
age interacts with the valence of the emotional
material, so that older adults increase attention to
positive and/or decrease attention to negative
information relative to other types of information
(Carstensen & Mikels, 2005). However, others
have found no evidence for valence-based effects
with ageing (Leclerc & Kensinger, 2008). One
study experimentally manipulated the emotionality
of a PM task and found that emotional valence was
detrimental to performance. Clark-Foos, Brewer,
Marsh, Meeks, and Cook (2009) found that
negatively valenced cues were detected less often
COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2011, 25 (5) 917
 RENDELL ET AL.
than positive cues (Experiments 1a
c). However,
they did not explore age differences in these
emotion effects.
When considering age differences in PM an
important distinction is typically made between
event- and time-based cues. Event-based tasks are
carried out in response to a specific event (e.g., pass
on good news when you next see a friend) while
time-based tasks are carried out at a specific time
(e.g., phoning your friend at 4 p.m. to pass on good
news). As time-based tasks require effortful time
monitoring they have been argued to be more
susceptible to age effects (McDaniel & Einstein,
2007). With respect to possible emotional enhance-
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ment effects, however, those may be greater for
event-based tasks. In terms of the multiprocess
model (McDaniel & Einstein, 2000), event-based
tasks have the potential to involve relatively strong
associations between the task content (e.g., good
news to pass on) and cue (meeting the friend). The
emotional content of a task arguably can be linked
to the cueing event, thus increasing the emotional
salience of the cue as well as the task content, and
this might improve PM performance. In contrast, it
seems less likely that the target time of a time-based
task (e.g., 4 p.m.) will become emotionally bound
to the content of the PM task (pass on good news).
Also, the content of the PM task is less likely to be
connected to the critical aspect of time monitoring
in time-based tasks than the critical task of noticing
the inherent environmental cue in event-based
tasks. Therefore, there may be less opportunity
for emotional task content to impact performance
on time-based relative to event-based PM tasks.
Aims
The primary aim of the present study was to directly
test whether there are age differences in emotion
enhancement effects on PM. To conduct this
assessment, an adapted version of Virtual Week
was used in which emotional valence was manipu-
lated through the images and content of tasks
presented at encoding. It was predicted that both
young and old would exhibit improved PM per-
formance when emotionally salient (as opposed to
neutral) images were presented. Given previous
918 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2011, 25 (5)
findings of age-related increases in positivity
enhancement effects we also tested whether
there is a differential enhancement of PM for
positive material in older adults. Finally, it was
predicted that any emotional enhancement effects
observed should be greater for event- relative to
time-based PM tasks.
METHOD
Participants
Thirty young (M21.9, SD3.28) and 30 old
adults (M75.0, SD5.72) participated. Young
adults were first-year psychology students and
received course credit for participation. Old adults
were recruited from various community sites and
retirement villages, and received an AUD$5.00
instant lottery ticket for participation. All had
normal mental status, as indexed by scores greater
than 83 (M94.8, SD3.97) on the Australian
version of the Revised Addenbrooke’s Cognitive
Examination (ACE-R; Mathuranath, Nestor,
Berrios, Rakowicz, & Hodges, 2000) and scores
between 27 and 30 on the Mini Mental State
Examination (M29.6, SD0.87). The two
groups differed in years of education, t(58)
7.41, pB.001. However, older adults performed
better than their younger counterparts on an index
of crystallised intelligence (Mill-Hill Vocabulary
Test); t(58)2.70, p.009, and more poorly on
a measure of fluid intelligence (Raven’s Progres-
sive Matrices); t(58)8.19, pB.001, suggesting
that the sample is broadly representative of ageing
studies.
Materials and procedure
After giving informed consent and providing
demographic information, participants completed
the dementia screening test (ACE-R; Mathura-
nath et al., 2000) as well as the Mill Hill Vocabulary
Test and the Raven’s Progressive Matrices. Then,
Virtual Week was administered.
PM: Virtual Week. The present study used a
computerised version of Virtual Week (Rendell &

Henry, 2009). Virtual Week is a laboratory
measure of PM designed to represent PM in daily
life. It uses a computerised board game format, in
which participants move around the board with
the roll of a die. Each circuit of the board
represents a waking day and as participants move
around the board, they pick up 10 event cards
giving choices about daily activities, and they
remember to carry out life-like activities (PM
tasks). Each day of Virtual Week includes ten
PM tasks (four regular, four irregular, and two
time-check). The four regular PM tasks were the
same each day and simulate the kinds of regular
tasks that occur as one undertakes normal duties,
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two of which are event-based (triggered by some
specific information shown on an event card:
breakfast and dinner event cards) and two of
which are time-based (triggered by passing a
particular time on the board: 11 a.m. and
9 p.m.). A clock was presented on screen, which
indicated virtual time. The four irregular PM tasks
are different each day and simulate the kinds of
occasional tasks that occur in everyday life; again,
two of these tasks are event-based and two are
time-based. Finally, the two time-check tasks are
the same each day but require the participant to
‘‘break set’’ from the board-game activity, and
monitor real time on the stop-clock that was
displayed prominently, and indicate when a spe-
cified period of time has passed: 2 min 30 s and
4 min 15 s from start of each virtual day.
Unlike previous editions of Virtual Week, here
the valence of the irregular tasks was manipulated.
Each irregular task was presented with a task-
relevant photo from the International Affective
Picture System (IAPS; Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert,
2005). Each IAPS picture has unique standardised
values, based on 1 to 9 rating scales of valence
(unpleasant to pleasant) and arousal (calm to excited).
Three sets of eight pictures were selected to
constitute positive, negative and neutral image
sets with valence ratings M(SD)7.9(0.41),
2.9(0.48) and 5.2(0.51), respectively, and moderate
arousal ratings M(SD)5.2(0.77), 4.9(0.35) and
3.3(0.83), respectively. The irregular tasks were
modified from earlier versions of Virtual Week so
that they would have positive, negative or neutral
VALENCE AND PROSPECTIVE MEMORY
content that corresponded to a specific IAPS
image. For instance, the negative task ‘‘Go to the
dentist at 10 a.m.’’ was shown with a negatively
rated picture of a dentist; the positive task ‘‘Tell
Kate that Margaret has had a baby girl’’ was
accompanied by a positively rated picture of a
baby, and the neutral task ‘‘Pick up brother’s gym
membership’’ was accompanied by a neutral-rated
picture of dumbbells. Content-relevant images also
accompanied the presentation of the other PM
tasks (regular and time-check) but for these tasks
normatively rated neutral images were presented.
As in the original version of Virtual Week,
participants were not required to physically under-
take the PM tasks. Instead, when the cue or time
to perform a task arrived, participants had to press
a ‘‘Perform task’’ button. At this point, a list of
possible tasks was presented and the participant
had to choose the appropriate task. The list
included both tasks that were part of the game
and unrelated distracter tasks. A practice trial day
was given, consistent with traditional administra-
tions of Virtual Week, before participants were
asked to complete the six trial days. Thus, in total,
participants were required to complete 24 irregu-
lar tasks (8 positive, 8 negative and 8 neutral).
Each day included two tasks of one valence and
one of each of the other two valence categories
(presented in counterbalanced order).
Virtual Week Free Recall Test. Upon completion
of Virtual Week participants were given pen and
paper and asked to free recall as many of the
irregular PM tasks as possible. Participants were
instructed that they did not have to remember
when they had to carry out the task (e.g., the
event or virtual time), only what they needed to
do. This measure was important to differentiate
between failures of prospective and retrospective
components of the PM tasks.
RESULTS
PM tasks with no emotion manipulation
In order to investigate age differences in PM
performance without valence manipulations, a
COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2011, 25 (5) 919
 RENDELL ET AL.
mixed 23 analysis of variance (ANOVA) was
conducted with the between-groups variable of
Age (young, old) and the within-groups variable
of PM Task (regular event-based, regular time-
based, time-check), with performance accuracy on
these tasks (proportion of PM tasks completed) as
the dependent variable (see Figure 1A). There was
a main effect of PM Task, F(2, 116)85.24,
MSE0.04, pB.001, h2p .60, and a main effect
of Age F(1, 58)13.85, MSE0.06, p.006,
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Figure 1. Mean proportion of correct responses on prospective
memory (PM) tasks (error bars depict standard error of the mean).
(A) PM tasks with no emotion manipulation. (B) Irregular PM
tasks*event-based. (C) Irregular PM tasks*time-based. The age
differences were significant in each of the three types of tasks
reported in A, B and C, except the regular event task in A.
920 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2011, 25 (5)
h2p .19, as well as an interaction between PM
Task and Age, F(2, 116)5.41, MSE0.04,
p.006, h2p 09. Tests of simple effects indi-
cated that the younger participants were more
accurate than older participants on regular
time-based, F(1, 58)11.46, p.001, h2p .17,
and on time-check, F(1, 58)11.83, p.001,
h2p .17, but young and old did not differ on
regular event-based performance (FB0.01).
Emotional valence, age and PM
Separate mixed 23 ANOVAs were conducted
on the event- and time-based irregular tasks with
the between-groups variable of Age (young, old)
and the within-groups variable of Valence (posi-
tive, negative, neutral), with Performance Accu-
racy as the dependent variable (see Figure 1B and
C). On the event-based tasks, there was a main
effect of Valence, F(2, 116)28.71, MSE0.03,
pB.001, h2p .33, and a main effect of Age
F(1, 58)55.89, MSE0.07, pB.001, h2p 
.49, as well as an interaction between Valence
and Age, F(2, 116)4.51, MSE0.03, p.013,
h2p .07. Tests of simple effects indicated that the
younger participants were more accurate than
older participants on event-based tasks across
all valences, for positive, negative and neutral,
F(1, 58)19.33, 27.82, 39.40, psB.001, h2p 
.25, .32 and .40, respectively. Valence was a
simple main effect within both young and old,
F(2, 57)11.15 and 39.21, pB.001, h2p .28
and .58, respectively. For both young and old,
Bonferroni post hoc tests revealed participants
performed significantly better on positive than on
both the negative and neutral tasks.
On the time-based-tasks, Valence was not a
main effect, and did not interact with Age both
FsB1, h2p .01, but there was a main effect of
Age, F(1, 58)54.11, MSE0.10, pB.001,
h2p .48, with younger adults outperforming their
older counterparts (young: M0.58, SD0.28;
old: M0.23, SD0.23).
To clarify the impact of emotional valence
positivity and negativity enhancement/impairment
indexes were calculated (see Figure 2, left side):
the difference between proportion correct on the

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Figure 2. Mean emotional enhancement/impairment index on the
event- and time-based irregular prospective memory (PM) tasks
for PM accuracy and PM task content recall. (A) Event-based.
(B) Time-based. Positivity indexproportion correct on positive
minus neutral PM tasks. Negativity indexproportion correct on
negative minus neutral PM tasks. *Enhancement/impairment
index significantly different to zero; horizontal bar significant
age difference; error bars depict standard error of the mean.
positive minus the neutral tasks, and the negative
minus the neutral tasks. This is consistent with
Murphy and Isaacowitz (2008), who advocated
comparing positively or negatively valenced mate-
rial with neutral material. On the event-based
tasks, the positivity enhancement was greater than
zero for both young and old participants: t(29)
2.97, 6.24, ps5.006, respectively, but the nega-
tivity index did not differ from zero for either
young or old, t(29)1.16, 0.84, ps].257.
Further analysis confirmed the positivity enhance-
ment on the event-based tasks was larger for the
old compared to the young participants, t(58)
3.12, p.003. On the time-based tasks, positivity
and negativity indexes did not differ from zero for
either young or old, ts(29)51.22, ps].231.
VALENCE AND PROSPECTIVE MEMORY
Post Virtual Week: Recall of the content of
irregular PM tasks
As with PM accuracy, the recall of PM con-
tent was analysed with separate mixed Age
(young, old)Valence (positive, negative, neu-
tral) ANOVAs on the event- and time-based
tasks. On the event-based tasks, there was a main
effect of Age, F(1, 58)67.60, MSE0.07,
pB.001, h2p .54, but Valence was not a main
effect, F(2, 116)2.33, MSE0.04, p.102,
h2p .04, and there was an interaction between
Age and Valence, F(2, 116)3.43, MSE0.04,
p.036, h2p .06. Tests of simple effects indi-
cated that the younger participants recalled more
tasks than older participants across all valences,
for positive (young: M0.60, SD0.23; old:
M0.38, SD0.21), negative (young: M
0.73, SD0.21; old: M0.35, SD0.18) and
neutral (young: M0.76, SD0.27; old: M
0.37 SD0.23), F(1, 58)15.77, 58.33, 35.33,
psB.001, h2p .21, .50 and .38, respectively.
Valence was a simple main effect for young,
F(2, 57)5.60, p.006, h2p .16, but not for
old (FB1). Bonferroni post hoc tests revealed
that young participants performed significantly
worse on positive than on both negative and
neutral.
On the time-based tasks, Valence was not a
main effect, F(2, 116)2.05, MSE0.05,
p.133, h2p .03, and did not interact with
Age F(2, 116)2.49, MSE0.05, p.087,
h2p .04, but there was a main effect of Age,
F(1, 58)80.46, MSE0.6, pB.001, h2p .58,
with young adults outperforming their older
counterparts (young: M0.55, SD0.25; old:
M0.22, SD0.25).
As with PM accuracy, positivity and negativity
enhancement/impairment indexes were calculated
(see Figure 2, right side): the difference between
task content accurately recalled on the positive
minus the neutral tasks, and the negative minus the
neutral tasks, respectively. For the event-based
tasks, there was positivity impairment: for young
adults: t(29)2.73, p.011, representing a
decrease in the performance on recalling the
content of PM tasks in positive compared to
COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2011, 25 (5) 921
 RENDELL ET AL.
neutral conditions; in contrast the positivity index
did not differ from zero for the old adults, t(29)
0.20, p.845. Further analysis confirmed the
positivity impairment was different for the younger
compared to the older participants, t(58)2.32,
p.024. The negativity index on event-based
tasks did not differ from zero for either young or
old, t(29)50.47, ps].693. On the time-based
tasks, the positivity enhancement was greater than
zero for old adults: t(29)2.73, p.011, but did
not differ from zero for young adults, t(29)0.35,
p.730. Further analysis confirmed the positivity
enhancement was different for the younger com-
pared to the older participants, t(58)2.33, p
Downloaded by [Université de Genève] at 06:01 12 August 2013
.024. The negativity indexes on time-based tasks
did not differ from zero for either young or old,
t(29)0.84, 1.94, ps].062.
DISCUSSION
These data corroborate previous laboratory find-
ings, in showing that old adults exhibit poorer
PM than their younger counterparts as indexed by
overall performance on Virtual Week (Rendell &
Craik, 2000). Specifically, when not manipulating
emotional valence (in regular tasks), age differ-
ences were substantial on time-based and elimi-
nated on event-based tasks. In contrast to early
versions of Virtual Week, the new computer
version is sensitive to the event- versus time-
based distinction in PM tasks.1 Our main predic-
tion was that manipulating emotional valence in
the set of irregular PM tasks would moderate
these effects of age on PM performance in the
same overall paradigm. Consistent with previous
Virtual Week studies, in irregular tasks, age
effects were observed in both event- and time-
based tasks, possibly due to more attentional
resources required for irregular, non-routine,
event-based tasks compared to regular, repetitive,
1
In the original study (Rendell & Craik, 2000), age differences were substantial on time-check but minimal on both regular
event- and time-based. In both studies a stop clock was used for time-check but the time-based tasks used times marked on squares
in the earlier study and a clock in the current study. Hence, in earlier studies the distinction between event- and time-based tasks
may have been blurred with times on board functioning as event cues.
922 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2011, 25 (5)
event-based tasks (Rendell & Henry, 2009). As
predicted, only for event-based PM performance
was an effect of valence observed. Both younger
and older adults showed positivity enhancement,
successfully performing more positive than neutral
tasks, and this positivity enhancement was con-
siderably larger for older than for younger adults.
There was no negativity enhancement or impair-
ment on PM performance. Thus, in the current
study negative emotional valence incurred no PM
costs or benefits, while positive emotional valence
confers PM benefits that are larger for older
adults. These findings contrast with the report
that emotional valence may be detrimental to
performance of young adults (Clark-Foos et al.,
2009, Experiement 2). However, the current
study findings concur with the Clark-Foos et al.
Experiment 1 finding of better PM for positive
than negative cues in a younger adult sample. As
they did not include a neutral condition it was not
possible to tell whether their results reflected a
positivity enhancement or negativity impairment.
Our evidence suggests that positivity enhance-
ment is more likely.
Given the evidence for age differences in the
effects of emotion on recall and recognition
memory, and in particular the reports of positivity
enhancement effects for older adults (Murphy &
Isaacowitz, 2008) it is important to consider the
role of the retrospective component in the Virtual
Week PM tasks. The first thing to note is that the
very different pattern of AgeValence interac-
tions on prospective and retrospective components
of the task means that it is unlikely that the
pattern of AgeValence effects seen on the PM
measure can be solely attributed to AgeValence
effects on remembering PM task content. Speci-
fically, older adults’ large advantage for perform-
ing positive event-based PM tasks was not
accompanied by an age-related advantage for

recalling positive over neutral information for the
event-based tasks.2
Looking overall at the positivity enhancements
seen for older adults the following pattern was
found. Older adults remembered to carry out
more positive than neutral event-based tasks, but
did not subsequently remember more information
about positive than neutral tasks. In contrast, they
did not show positivity enhancement in remem-
bering to carry out time-based tasks, but did
subsequently remember more information about
positive than neutral time-based task content.
How can this pattern be explained? We suggest
that a likely explanation lies in the consideration
Downloaded by [Université de Genève] at 06:01 12 August 2013
of the critical difference between carrying out
event- and time-based tasks involving notic-
ing the event cues versus monitoring time. As
hypothesised on the basis of the multiprocess
framework, older adults may have profited from
the elevated salience of event-based PM cues that
possibly resulted from binding together informa-
tion about the positive task contents and the
accompanying cue events in the event-based
condition. This would enhance PM cue detection
and thus PM accuracy in the event-based tasks.
For the time-based tasks, older adults may have
actively encoded and rehearsed the positive task
information, enhancing subsequent recall memory
for the task. However, as this information was
difficult to bind with the time-based task’s ‘‘cue’’
(i.e., an arbitrary time point), this did not enhance
time-based PM performance. The positivity im-
pairment for remembering content of event-based
tasks among younger people was not expected.
However, it may link to at least one previous
finding that younger adults have poorer retro-
spective memory for positive than neutral IAPS
pictures reported in the meta-analysis by Murphy
and Issaacowitz (2008). Perhaps under some
conditions younger people do not expend much
effort in encoding positive information*this
would fit with evidence that younger people spend
less time fixating on positive than neutral IAPS
pictures (Wadlinger & Isaacowitz, 2006, Study 1).
2
The significant main effect for age on PM accuracy remained after covarying out recall of the content in an ANCOVA.
VALENCE AND PROSPECTIVE MEMORY
Given the pattern on event-based tasks that
younger people showed impaired recall of positive
compared to neutral information, but enhanced
enactment of positive PM tasks compared to
neutral, this raises interesting possibilities about
the effects of emotion on the different stages of
encoding and retrieval of prospective remember-
ing. Future studies could try to tease apart more
carefully the role of emotion in influencing each
stage of PM. This issue is also highlighted when
comparing the design of the current emotion
manipulation with that reported by Clark-Foos
et al. (2009). Consistent with most prior literature
on emotional enhancement effects in memory, in
the present study the emotional content of the
task was highlighted by displaying emotionally
valenced images when the intention was formed,
at encoding of the PM task. This may explain the
contrast of this study with the findings in Clark-
Foos et al.’s (2009, Experiment 2) study, where
emotion was not highlighted at encoding, and
only revealed at the time of retrieval. Further
research is therefore needed to clarify the relative
importance of emphasising the emotional salience
of PM tasks at encoding versus retrieval phases.
The current study adds to our understanding of
age difference in emotion enhancement effects.
Age-related positivity enhancements have not
consistently been identified in other cognitive
domains, including retrospective memory and
attention (Murphy & Isaacowitz, 2008). Indeed,
the nature of age effects in emotion processing
has been found to vary as a function of mea-
surement type (Murphy & Isaacowitz, 2008),
methodological design (Isaacowitz, Wadlinger,
Goren, & Wilson, 2006), encoding instructions
(Kensinger, Gutchess, & Schacter, 2007), the
arousal level of the emotional word (Kensinger,
2008), as well as available cognitive resources
(Petrican, Moscovitch, & Schimmack, 2008).
These data appear to add to growing evidence
that an age-related positivity enhancement may
only manifest under particular circumstances, and,
specifically, in the context of PM may be
COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2011, 25 (5) 923
 RENDELL ET AL.
restricted to event-based assessments of this
construct.
The impact of emotional valence on event- (and
not time-based) PM may reflect a number of
factors. First, there is greater scope for emotional
valence to be manipulated in relation to events
rather than times. Second, for event-based tasks
there is the possibility for positively valenced PM
task content to facilitate the initiation of PM task,
whereas the retrieval of time-based tasks is depen-
dent on self-initiated monitoring of time, which is
presumably not linked to the content of the PM.
The findings of larger positivity enhancement
for old relative to young adults on the event-based
Downloaded by [Université de Genève] at 06:01 12 August 2013
PM tasks also potentially inform the ‘‘age
PM
paradox’’. In the introduction it was suggested
that the content of the tests themselves may
contribute to the paradoxical findings, with most
laboratory tasks having minimal emotional sal-
ience compared to naturalistic tasks that often
involve interpersonal component. It was suggested
older adults’ performance in naturalistic setting
could reflect the increased task salience of PM
tasks in this setting (McDaniel & Einstein, 2007).
This explanation is supported by this study
showing that boosting emotionality of PM tasks
can enhance older adults’ on PM. However, a
limitation of the current paradigm is that emo-
tional salience was manipulated using tasks nor-
matively judged as being positive or negative in
content. Thus, personal emotional salience was
not assessed and this remains an important
consideration for future research. Additional
limitations were that young and old adults had
different forms of modest compensation (2%
course credit bonus versus $5.00 instant lottery
ticket), which might have contributed to age
differences in task motivation.
In conclusion, the data reported in this study
suggest that, as has been shown in other cognitive
domains, emotional salience is relevant to under-
standing PM function, and this is true for both
younger and older cohorts. However, the magni-
tude and direction of this effect appears to vary as
a function of important influences: both age and a
number of PM task parameters*specifically,
whether the PM cue is time- or event-based,
924 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2011, 25 (5)
and whether performance is measured in terms of
prospective remembering (success in carrying out
the task) or retrospective remembering (recalling
the content of the task). Further, these data
indicate that positivity enhancement of PM*at
least as indexed by event-based tasks*is greater
for old relative to young. Given the importance of
PM in everyday life, this suggests that future
interventions to improve PM in cognitively
impaired populations could focus on emotional
manipulations. Further research is needed using
controlled manipulations that test the degree to
which emotional salience interacts with other
properties of the PM task, such as personal
relevance and interpersonal demands.
Manuscript received 8 October 2009
Revised manuscript received 10 June 2010
Manuscript accepted 5 July 2010
First published online 14 September 2010
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