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Updated: Mar 14, 2026

Assessment of Age-related Changes in Cognitive Functions Using EmoCogMeter, a Novel Tablet-computer Based Approach
Published on: February 14, 2014
Time-of-day affects prospective memory differently in younger and older adults
1a Institute of Psychology and Center for Cognition, Learning and Memory , University of Bern , Switzerland.
Abstract:
The goal of this study was to investigate the impact of circadian arousal on prospective memory performance as a function of age. We tested a younger (18-34 years) and an older group (56-95 years) of participants on- and off-peak with regard to their circadian arousal patterns in a computer-based laboratory experiment. For the prospective memory task, participants had to press a particular key whenever specific target words appeared in an ongoing concreteness-judgment task. The results showed that prospective memory performance was better on- than off-peak in younger but not older participants. Younger participants consistently outperformed older participants in all conditions. We conclude that prospective remembering underlies time-of-day effects which most likely reflect controlled processes.
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