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Memory
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Prospective and retrospective memory

in normal ageing and dementia: A
questionnaire study
a a a
Geoff Smith , Sergiola Del Sala , Robert H. Logie & Elizabeth A.
b
Maylor
a
University of Aberdeen, UK
b
University of Warwick, UK
Published online: 21 Sep 2010.

To cite this article: Geoff Smith , Sergiola Del Sala , Robert H. Logie & Elizabeth A. Maylor (2000)
Prospective and retrospective memory in normal ageing and dementia: A questionnaire study, Memory,
8:5, 311-321, DOI: 10.1080/09658210050117735

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 MEMORY, 2000, 8 (5), 311–321

Prospective and retrospective memory in normal ageing

and dementia: A questionnaire study

Geoff Smith, Sergio Della Sala, and Robert H. Logie

University of Aberdeen, UK
Downloaded by [University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries] at 01:34 20 December 2014

Elizabeth A. Maylor
University of Warwick, UK

Frequency of prospective memory and retrospective memory failures was rated on a 16-item ques-
tionnaire by 862 volunteers, from five groups: patients with Alzheimer Disease (rated by carers), carers of
Alzheimer Disease patients, elderly, young, and a group of married couples. Reported memory failures
were highest for Alzheimer Disease patients, and lowest for carers, with elderly and young controls in
between. More prospective memory than retrospective memory failures were reported in all groups,
although the difference was small for Alzheimer Disease patients who were rated near ceiling for both.
Prospective memory failures of Alzheimer Disease patients were reported as more frustrating for carers
than retrospective memory failures; prospective memory and retrospective memory failures frustrated
Alzheimer Disease patients equally. Data from the couples indicated that there were no biases resulting
from rating on behalf of someone else. These results suggest that: (1) normal ageing has no greater effect
on self-reported retrospective memory than prospective memory failures, (2) the relatively small number
of memory failures reported by carers may result from comparing themselves with the Alzheimer Disease
patients in their care, and (3) prospective memory failures have a greater impact on the lives of the carers
and are therefore more likely to be reported as early indicants of the disease.

Memory problems are among the most common
symptoms of neurological damage associated with
degenerative brain disease such as Alzheimer
Disease (Hart & Semple, 1994; Morris, 1996).
Alzheimer Disease affects around 5% of the
general population, and about 8–10% of people
over the age of 65 (Jorm, 1990). The number of
people affected either directly or indirectly
becomes much higher when we consider the carers
and families of these Alzheimer Disease patients.
Memory impairment is the main deficit observed,
and is also one of the early indicators of the dis-
ease (Nebes, 1992; Spinnler, 1999; Venneri,
Turnbull & Della Sala, 1996). However, memory
is not a unitary cognitive function and typically
studies of memory in Alzheimer Disease focus on
recall of past events, semantic memory or memory
for word lists, commonly referred to collectively
as retrospective memory. Other important aspects
of memory have been somewhat neglected in
studies of Alzheimer Disease, notably prospective
memory, or memory for intentions.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert H. Logie, Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24
2UB, UK. Email: r.logie@abdn.ac.uk
This research was funded by The Wellcome Trust (grant 047065) and the Medical Research Council (grant G9606610N) . Versions
of this questionnaire are available in different languages thanks to European Commission contract number SOC 97 201791 05F03
(97CVVF3-400-0).
The authors are grateful to James Becker (University of Pittsburgh), Kate Fearnley (Alzheimer Scotland), Gabriella Salvini Porro
(Alzheimer Italia), and Lawrence Whalley and Michael Shanks (University of Aberdeen) for their assistance in distributing ques-
tionnaires to the carers of Alzheimer patients. We also thank all the volunteers and carers who participated in this study.

Ó 2000 Psychology Press Ltd

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pp/09658211.html
 312 SMITH ET AL.
Remembering to do things at the right time is at
least as important as being able to retrieve infor-
mation about our past. A failure of prospective
memory can have a range of consequences, such
as forgetting an appointment or to take prescribed
drugs at appropriate times. Despite the potentially
serious and disruptive consequences of such fail-
ures, and their relatively high everyday frequency
in the healthy population (Dobbs & Rule, 1987;
Terry, 1988), prospective memory has received
little attention within the scientific literature on
Alzheimer Disease.
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The literature on memory deterioration in
normal ageing has also focused on deficits of ret-
rospective memory (e.g., Cohen & Faulkner, 1989;
Rabbitt, 1993; Salthouse, 1992). Typically older
people perform more poorly on explicit memory
tasks than do younger people, and the difference
varies with the degree of difficulty of the task; for
example recall is more impaired by normal ageing
than is recognition (Light, 1991; Light & Burke,
1988).
The effects of ageing are less clear for pro-
spective memory (see Maylor, 1993, 1996, for
reviews), possibly because of the heterogeneity of
the various tasks and procedures used in its
assessment (Kvavilashvili, 1992). For example,
Einstein and McDaniel (1990) distinguished
between two types of prospective memory task.
Event-based tasks involve an action being per-
formed in response to a particular target event or
cue, such as pressing a key when the target event
occurs. This type of task can be described as
environmentally-cued . Time-based tasks involve
performing an action at a specified time or after
the passage of a set time period, such as pressing a
key in 10 minutes. This type of task can be
described as self-cued. Preliminary evidence indi-
cates that age-related deficits in prospective
memory are less marked in event-based than in
time-based tasks (Einstein et al., 1995; Park et al.,
1997).
Evidence from a subset of items from a cogni-
tive failures questionnaire suggests that normal
elderly people complain more about retrospective
memory than prospective memory failures in
comparison with young people (Maylor, 1993).
However, there have been few attempts to quan-
tify this systematically, or to establish the fre-
quencies of everyday prospective memory and
retrospective memory errors in healthy young and
elderly people, and even fewer attempts to do so
in Alzheimer Disease patients. There is anecdotal
evidence that patients in the early stages of
Alzheimer Disease have greater difficulty in
‘‘remembering to do things’’, and to do them at
the appropriate time, than retrieving information
from the past (McKitrick, Camp, & Black, 1992),
and also some preliminary experimental evidence
(Huppert & Beardsall, 1993; but see Maylor, 1995
for discussion).
Prospective memory failures in Alzheimer
Disease patients can be studied experimentally,
and this is the focus of some of our other ongoing
research. In this paper we focus on reported
memory failures and attempt to assess whether
the hitherto anecdotal evidence matches the
pattern obtained from a more systematic col-
lation of the reports from carers. In so doing, it is
crucial to have an instrument that can satisfacto-
rily elicit reports of memory failures that are
clearly retrospective or clearly prospective.
However, there are no such instruments with this
distinction as a core attribute. For example, the
Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (Broadbent,
Cooper, Fitzgerald, & Parkes, 1982) considers
self-reported memory failures but only 2 items
out of 25 address prospective memory (see
Maylor, 1993).
We report the results from the use of a new
questionnaire designed to establish the frequency
with which Alzheimer Disease patients, their
carers, and normal controls report making parti-
cular types of everyday memory errors. Of parti-
cular interest is whether there are differences in
reported frequency between prospective memory
errors and retrospective memory errors, and if this
difference is more pronounced in the Alzheimer
Disease patients compared with controls. Differ-
ent aspects of both prospective memory and ret-
rospective memory were considered in developing
the present questionnaire. One of the simplest
ways of categorising memory is by retention time:
short-term and long-term. This distinction per-
tains to prospective memory as well as to retro-
spective memory in that intentions and events
may need to be remembered over brief periods of
time, for example remembering to take something
when leaving the house, or after a much longer
delay, for example meeting a friend in a week’s
time.
A further important issue is whether or not
relevant cues are available to prompt remember-
ing an event or an action. Self-generate d cues rely
more on internal retrieval processes for successful
remembering (Craik, 1986) than do environ-
mental cues. Either type of cue can be relevant for
both prospective memory (cf. event- versus time-

based tasks; Einstein & McDaniel, 1990) and
retrospective memory, and for both short- and
long-term remembering. Craik argued that tasks
heavily dependent on self cueing (such as free
recall) are more difficult than those involving
environmental cueing (such as recognition). He
also claimed that ‘‘remembering to remember’’
(i.e. prospective memory) is particularly depen-
dent on self cueing. Therefore, if we assume that
memory impairments in ageing result from a
decline in cognitive resources, then self-cued
retrieval should be differentially impaired in older
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people, with an even greater impact on Alzheimer
Disease patients.
These aspects of memory determined the 16
items included in the questionnaire used in this
study which was structured to include two ques-
tions from each of the eight categories (pro-
spective memory/retrospective memory 6 short-
term/long-term 6 self-cued/environmentally-
cued). It focused on the relative frequency with
which each type of memory failure occurs in
healthy older and younger adults and Alzheimer
Disease patients. There were two main aims of the
study: (1) to investigate claims that prospective
memory failures are reported more frequently
than retrospective memory failures in Alzheimer
Disease patients (e.g. McKitrick et al., 1992), and
(2) to investigate suggestions that retrospective
memory failures are reported more frequently
than prospective memory failures in normal age-
ing (e.g. Maylor, 1993).
The questionnaire also assessed the level of
frustration suffered by both Alzheimer Disease
patients and carers resulting from the patients’
prospective memory and retrospective memory
failures, where ‘‘frustration’’ represents feelings of
stress and irritation caused by the patients’ pro-
blems (see Broe et al., 1999).
TABLE 1
Descriptive statistics for gender, age, and education of the participant groups
Age (years)
Group n M:F M SD
AD patients 155 49:106 73.95
Carers 155 59:96 56.85
Controls
Elderly 242 72:170 72.74
Young 164 62:102 44.19
M= males; F = females; AD = Alzheimer Disease
PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE MEMORY 313
METHOD
Participants
Data were gathered from four main groups of
respondents: Alzheimer Disease patients and
their carers, and elderly and young controls. A
further group of married couples was also recrui-
ted for reasons given later. Alzheimer Disease
patients and their primary carers were contacted
through the Alzheimer Disease Societies of Scot-
land and Italy, and from memory clinics in
Aberdeen, UK and Pittsburgh, USA. Control
responses were obtained from panels of volun-
teers at the Universities of Aberdeen and
Warwick, from visitors to a Psychology Centenary
Open Day at the University of Aberdeen, and
from local clubs and societies. The married
couples were recruited from the Warwick panel of
volunteers.
A total of 316 Alzheimer Disease patients and
carers (158 pairs) responded. Of these, six (three
pairs) were excluded because of reported recent
strokes. In all, 40 Alzheimer Disease patient–
carer pairs from the UK, 84 from Italy, and 31
from the USA were included in the study.
Demographic details for the Alzheimer Disease
patients and carers are shown in Table 1.
The Alzheimer Disease patients’ relationships
to their carers were as follows: spouse (n = 55),
parent (n = 71), sibling (n = 16), other/not reported
(n = 13). The duration of the patients’ illness
ranged from 1 to 16 years (M = 4.65, SD = 2.90).
Control respondents totalled 432. Of these, 26
were excluded because of hospitalisation for pre-
vious neurological impairment. The remaining
406 control responses were split into an elderly
group (60 years and over) and a young group
(under 60 years). Demographic details of the
Full-time education (years)
Range M SD Range
8.77 58–93 12.14 3.60 3–20
13.20 26–86 15.59 3.55 3–20
8.30 60–93 12.97 3.39 4–20
11.40 17–59 14.04 3.70 6–20
 314 SMITH ET AL.
control participants are shown in Table 1. An
ANOVA showed that there was a significant dif-
ference in age between groups, F(3, 712) = 331.74,
MSe = 105.97, p < .001. Post-hoc Newman Keuls
analysis showed that age differed significantly
across all four groups, with the exception of the
Alzheimer Disease patients and elderly controls
who did not differ from each other. A second
ANOVA showed that there was a significant dif-
ference in years of education between the groups,
F(3, 712) = 28.46, MSe = 12.60, p < .001. Post-hoc
Newman Keuls analysis showed that all four
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group means differed significantly from each
other, with the carers having the highest level of
education and the Alzheimer Disease patients
having the lowest.
The group of 73 married couples was closely
matched to the elderly control group in terms of
age (range = 53–94; M = 70.02) and education
(range = 6–20; M = 12.68).
Materials
A 16-item questionnaire was developed to allow
participants to rate the frequency with which they
make particular types of memory errors. Partici-
pants rated how often each type of memory failure
occurred on a 5-point scale: Very Often, Quite
Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Never. The questions
came from eight categories reflecting different
aspects of memory, with two questions for each
category. The eight categories were: prospective
short-term self-cued, prospective short-term
environmentally-cued, prospective long-term self-
cued, prospective long-term environmentally-
cued, retrospective short-term self-cued, retro-
spective short-term environmentally-cued, retro-
spective long-term self-cued, and retrospective
long-term environmentally-cued. Appendix A
shows which questions corresponded to each of
the eight categories, and the order in which the
questions appeared in the questionnaire used in
the present study.
The 16 questions together with a detailed
explanation of the categories were sent to eight
colleagues who were expert researchers in mem-
ory. They were asked to identify which item
belonged to which category; 88% of responses
were consistent with our intended categorisation.
Following a re-wording of one item, consistency
rose to 96%.
Different versions of the questionnaire were
produced for the carers to rate the patients, carers
to rate themselves, married couples to rate
themselves and their spouses, and controls. These
were worded appropriately for each participant
group. For example, ‘‘Do you fail to recognise a
place you have visited before?’’ for self rating
became ‘‘Does he/she fail to recognise a place he/
she has visited before?’’ for rating others. Also the
instructions on the questionnaires about their
completion were slightly different for each group
(see Appendix B).
In addition, the carers were asked to rate how
frustrated both they and the patients were with the
patients’ memory problems. There were four
questions, two concerning the carers’ frustration:
‘‘Do you find it frustrating that he/she forgets
things from the past?’’ and ‘‘Do you find it frus-
trating that he/she forgets to do things?’’, and two
asking the carers to rate the patients’ frustration:
‘‘Does he/she find it frustrating that he/she forgets
things from the past?’’ and ‘‘Does he/she find it
frustrating that he/she forgets to do things?’’. The
responses to these were given on a 4-point rating
scale: Very, Quite, Slightly, Not at all.
Procedure
All participants were asked to respond to a
questionnaire, although the carers completed the
questionnaire on behalf of the Alzheimer Disease
patients. All responses were anonymous. Patient/
carer responses from the memory clinics were
obtained from carers when they accompanied the
patients on a scheduled appointment with the
consultant. Other patient/carer responses were
obtained by post, and each questionnaire was
accompanied by a covering letter giving back-
ground information about the project and reiter-
ating the specific instructions for the relevant
group. These letters asked carers to rate them-
selves on one version, and the person they care for
on the other. The covering letter instructed mar-
ried couples to rate themselves on one version,
and their spouse on the other, and not to confer
while completing the questionnaires.
Copies of the questionnaire together with the
covering letter and a prepaid envelope were sent
to Alzheimer Disease Society members at the
same time as an edition of their monthly news-
letter. The questionnaire for the Italian Alzheimer
Disease patient–carer pairs was translated into
Italian by one of the authors.
Control participants and married couples from
the volunteer panel in Warwick were sent ques-
 PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE MEMORY 315

tionnaires and covering letters by post, along with
a prepaid envelope for returns. Other control
responses were gathered by the authors during the
Aberdeen Psychology Centenary Open Day and
via local clubs and societies.
RESULTS
Unless otherwise stated, all significant effects and
interactions reported are at the p < .05 level or
less.
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nificantly from each other with the exception of
the elderly and young control means, which did
not differ.
The Alzheimer Disease patients’ mean scores
were all close to the poor end of the scale, sug-
gesting that a more detailed comparison among
question types with the other groups would be
unlikely to yield interpretable results. We there-
fore conducted an ANOVA across question types
in the Alzheimer Disease patient data by selecting
only the lower score from each pair of questions in
a given category. This three-way ANOVA inclu-

Ratings were assigned numerical values as fol-
lows: Very Often = 5, Quite Often = 4, Some-
times = 3, Rarely = 2, Never = 1. Scores for the two
questions from each of the eight categories were
quite similar, the largest discrepancy being
between the two questions concerned with retro-
spective, long-term, environmentally-cued fail-
ures (see Appendix A), with mean ratings of 1.91
and 2.50. Scores for the two questions in each pair
were therefore averaged giving a mean frequency
for each type of memory error. Prior to conduct-
ing the analyses across groups, we examined the
split half reliability of the questionnaire, compar-
ing the two questions within each category from
the elderly and young control participants only
(n = 406). Using the Spearman-Brown formula,
the split half reliability was rSB = 0.84.
The mean scores for each question type are
shown in Table 2. An initial ANOVA compared
the overall mean scores across the four groups of
participants (Alzheimer Disease patients, carers,
elderly controls, and young controls). This
revealed a significant main effect of group,
F(3, 711) = 561.52, MSe = 0.363. Newman Keuls
analysis indicated that these means differed sig-
ded the variables memory (prospective memory/
retrospective memory), term (short-term/long-
term) and cueing (self/environmental), and yiel-
ded no significant main effects of memory type
(prospective memory/retrospective memory), or
term (short-term/long-term). Self-cued errors
(M = 4.45) were reported significantly more fre-
quently than environmentally cued errors
(M = 4.33), F(1, 154) = 11.92, MSe = 0.33. The
interaction between memory type and term was
also significant, F(1, 154) = 6.75, MSe = 0.35. Post-
hoc Newman Keuls analysis indicated that only
the means for prospective memory long-term
errors (4.45) and retrospective memory long-term
errors (4.32) differed significantly from each
other. The interaction between memory type and
cueing was also significant, F(1, 154) = 36.03,
MSe = 0.43. For prospective memory, self-cued
errors (M = 4.36) were reported as less frequent
than environmentally-cued errors (M = 4.47),
whereas for retrospective memory, self-cued
errors (M = 4.54) were reported as more frequent
than environmentally-cue d errors (M = 4.20).
An ANOVA was performed on the error rat-
ings from elderly and young controls to test for

TABLE 2
Means of memory error frequency ratings as a function of group and question category

Prospective Retrospective

Short-term Long-term Short-term Long-term

Group Self Envt Self Envt Self Envt Self Envt

AD patients 4.55 4.61 4.60 4.61 4.67 4.47 4.67 4.41

(0.72) (0.66) (0.71) (0.73) (0.59) (0.83) (0.67) (0.89)
Carers 2.44 2.29 2.04 2.29 2.38 1.72 1.95 1.75
(0.80) (0.77) (0.84) (0.82) (0.87) (0.85) (0.88) (0.70)
Elderly controls 3.00 2.62 2.33 2.44 2.86 1.91 2.45 2.21
(0.80) (0.76) (0.80) (0.77) (0.82) (0.71) (0.88) (0.67)
Young controls 2.86 2.55 2.26 2.38 2.83 1.78 2.41 2.20
(0.67) (0.72) (0.76) (0.74) (0.81) (0.69) (0.90) (0.65)

SDs in parentheses. Self= self-cued; Envt = environmentally cued; AD = Alzheimer Disease

 316 SMITH ET AL.
effects of normal ageing. This included the vari-
ables age group (elderly and young), memory
(prospective memory/retrospective memory),
term (short/long), and cueing (self/environ-
mental). There was no significant main effect of
age, or any significant interactions involving age.
Prospective memory errors (M = 2.55) were rated
as significantly more frequent than retrospective
memory errors (M = 2.33), F(1, 402) = 92.07,
MSe = 0.41. Short-term errors (M = 2.55) were
rated as significantly more frequent than long-
term errors (M = 2.34), F(1, 402) = 117.33,
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MSe = 0.31. Self-cued errors (M = 2.63) were rated
as significantly more frequent than environmen-
tally-cued errors (M = 2.26), F(1, 402) = 337.70,
MSe = 0.30. The three two-way interactions not
involving age group were all significant
(F(1, 402) > 99.07, as was the three-way interaction
between memory type, term, and cueing,
F(1, 402) = 18.16, MSe = 0.26. This is illustrated in
Figure 1. The most striking feature of Figure 1 is
the substantial advantage for both groups in
retrospective memory relative to prospective
memory for short-term, environmentally-cued
memory. The advantage was evident for both
items representing these conditions in the
questionnaire.
Figure 1. Mean reported errors for prospective and retrospective memory, as a function of short- vs long-term and self- vs envir-
onmentally-cued conditions. Data from elderly and young control groups.
We next examined the apparent superior
memory ability reported by the carers. The carers’
mean age (57 years) was very similar to that of the
young and elderly control groups combined (61
years). Therefore we compared the scores for the
carers with those from the combined control
group. The ANOVA revealed that carers repor-
ted significantly fewer memory errors (M = 2.11)
than controls (M = 2.45), F(1, 557) = 37.67,
MSe = 2.80. From Table 1, it is clear that the carers
had a higher overall educational level than the
other groups. We therefore repeated the analysis,
with educational level as a covariate. The overall
effect of group remained highly significant sug-
gesting that the reported memory advantage for
the carers was not due to their generally higher
level of education.
The data from married couples were used to
examine whether the apparent superior memory
in the carers arose from the procedure of asking
carers to complete the questionnaire on behalf of
both themselves and another person. An
ANOVA was conducted on the data from the
married couples with report (self/other) as a
variable. The means for self-reporting (2.38) and
reporting for another (2.45) were not significantly
different, F(1, 290) = 1.03, MSe = 0.80. This indi-

cates that the observed overall difference between
carers and controls cannot be attributed to an
effect of completing a questionnaire about some-
one else.
A further ANOVA compared the married
couples’ self reports with those of the elderly
controls in order to ensure that there were no
biases resulting from marital status. The only sig-
nificant result was an interaction between gender
and group, F(1, 382) = 9.70, MSe = 0.64, and post-
hoc Newman Keuls analysis indicated that the
mean for the married couples was significantly
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higher for the men than for the women, whereas
the control men and women did not differ. (There
were also no gender differences for the Alzheimer
Disease patients, carers, or young controls.) This
result indicates that the gender difference is spe-
cific to the married couples. The data also suggest
that both married partners agree that the wives
have better memories than the husbands (wives’
self rating = 2.15; husbands’ ratings of wives = 2.17;
husbands’ self rating = 2.60; wives’ ratings of hus-
bands = 2.74).
Frustration ratings
Ratings of frustration in response to memory
problems in the Alzheimer Disease patients were
assigned numerical values as follows: Very = 4,
Quite = 3, Slightly = 2, Not at all = 1. An ANOVA
conducted on the frustration ratings revealed that
carers rated Alzheimer Disease patients as sig-
nificantly more frustrated than they were them-
selves, F(1, 150) = 18.47, MSe = 1.80. Prospective
memory errors were rated as significantly more
frustrating than retrospective memory errors,
F(1, 150) = 4.75, MSe = 0.24. Finally, the interac-
tion between report type and memory type was
significant, F(1, 150) = 4.50, MSe = 0.18. Post-hoc
Newman Keuls analysis revealed that carers were
more frustrated by the Alzheimer Disease
patients’ prospective memory errors (M = 2.05)
than by their retrospective memory errors
(M = 1.87), whereas Alzheimer Disease patients
were reported as equally frustrated by both types
of memory error (prospective memory = 2.44;
retrospective memory = 2.42).
DISCUSSION
The present study found that carers rated Alz-
heimer Disease patients’ prospective memory and
retrospective memory errors similarly and both as
PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE MEMORY 317
very frequent; however when only the Alzheimer
Disease patients’ lower scores for each category
were considered, some prospective memory errors
were rated as more frequent than some retro-
spective memory errors, although the pro-
spective–retrospective difference was much
clearer for the control groups. The result for
patients is consistent with the hitherto anecdotal
evidence that prospective memory errors may be
more frequent than retrospective memory errors
in Alzheimer Disease.
The comparison of young and elderly controls
revealed no differences in reported memory
errors associated with normal ageing either for
prospective memory or retrospective memory.
This contrasts with results of experimentally based
studies in which age-related deficits have been
shown clearly for retrospective memory (see
Light, 1991, for a review). As noted earlier, the
experimental evidence is less clear for prospective
memory, with some studies showing prospective
memory performance in the elderly to be at least
as good as that of young adults, while other recent
experimental studies have demonstrated sig-
nificant age-related deficits (see Maylor, 1998, for
a summary). Self-rating studies show no evidence
of a deterioration in prospective memory with age
(Cohen & Faulkner, 1984; Dobbs & Rule, 1987;
Harris, 1984; Martin, 1986; Rabbitt et al., 1995),
although there is some evidence for a self-repor-
ted decline in retrospective memory with age
(Maylor, 1993; Riege, 1982; but see Bruce, Coyne
& Botwinick, 1982; Loewen, Shaw & Craik, 1990;
Lovelace & Marsh, 1985, for no age differences in
self-rated ability). However, unlike these previous
studies, our own questionnaire systematically
compared prospective memory and retrospective
memory across a number of salient dimensions.
Under these circumstances, no differential age
differences emerged.
The reports from carers, elderly controls,
young controls, and married couples consistently
showed that prospective memory errors were
reported as more frequent than retrospective
memory errors even if those differences were
modest. This may reflect either a real perfor-
mance difference between prospective memory
and retrospective memory, or different levels of
inconvenience that prospective memory and ret-
rospective memory errors cause. Short-term
errors were also consistently reported as being
more frequent than long-term errors by the carers,
elderly and young controls, and married couples.
Again this may be because they impact more on
 318 SMITH ET AL.
daily life and are therefore more noticeable.
Alternatively, Harris (1980) pointed out in the
case of prospective memory errors that actions
which are not to be carried out in the immediate
future are more likely to be supported by memory
aids such as diaries or calendars. Our finding that
self-cued retrieval led to more frequent errors
than did environmentally-cued retrieval is in line
with Craik’s (1986) view that differential memory
performance across tasks can be explained in
terms of differences in the required levels of self-
initiated rather than environmentally-cued
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processing.
As illustrated in Figure 1, short-term self-cued
errors were relatively high for both prospective
memory and retrospective memory. In the case of
prospective memory, these could be regarded as
retrieval failures or ‘‘momentary lapses of inten-
tion’’ (see Craik & Kerr, 1996; West & Craik,
1999), whereas in the case of retrospective mem-
ory, these are more likely to be attributable to
attentional failures at encoding (see examples in
Appendix A). The three-way interaction in Figure
1 primarily arose because of a pronounced dif-
ference between prospective memory and retro-
spective memory for short-term environmentally-
cued tasks. Not surprisingly, such errors were
infrequent for retrospective memory because
recognition tasks are trivial and undemanding
over short time delays. In contrast, short-term
environmentally-cued prospective memory tasks
are prone to failure because (a) the environmental
cue may not be perceived, and (b) even if it is
perceived, it may fail to trigger the appropriate
action. In other words, an environmental cue may
be sufficient for a retrospective memory task but
not for a prospective memory task where there is
still some degree of self-initiated activity required
(though clearly less than for a self-cued task).
The present study reveals what can be termed a
‘‘caring for Alzheimer Disease patients effect’’.
Specifically, carers reported fewer memory fail-
ures than did age-matched controls. This is not
simply an effect of reporting on behalf of someone
else, because the effect was absent from the mar-
ried couples’ ratings of each other’s memory
errors. Nor is it an effect of higher levels of edu-
cation in the carers. The result raises an important
methodological issue, as often the carers of Alz-
heimer Disease patients act as controls for vali-
dating rating scales (e.g., Brazzelli et al., 1994).
The finding may also have implications for the use
of carers as controls in experimental and psycho-
metric studies. This may lead to biases in control
data, as carers may not only demonstrate unin-
tentional biases in their self reports, but also may
be more highly motivated than other control
participants to perform well on memory tasks.
Moreover they may be more practised in everyday
remembering both for themselves and for the
patients in their care.
Rabbitt (1984) pointed out that in order to
make judgements about their own mnemonic
abilities, people may compare their performance
with that of others around them. If that other
person is suffering from Alzheimer Disease, it is
likely that people may have an inflated opinion of
their own ability due to comparison with deficits
caused by Alzheimer Disease. Therefore, a fur-
ther possible interpretation for the carer data may
be that carers are under-reporting their own fail-
ings in an effort to distance themselves from the
performance of Alzheimer Disease patients (see
also Strack et al., 1990).
This adds to a number of concerns relating to
self-report data. For example, Rabbitt et al. (1995)
commented that the utility of self reports might be
undermined by problems of reliability, con-
sistency, validity, and self awareness (see also
Dixon, 1989; Schwarz, Park, Knäuper & Sudman,
1999). However, at least on the split half reliability
measure, our questionnaire appeared to be rela-
tively robust. Moreover, the initial procedure of
asking experts in memory research to categorise
the items gives us some confidence in the validity
of our measure.
The effect of gender in the married couples’
data, where husbands and wives agreed that wives
have generally fewer memory failures, may be
explained in terms of expectations within the
relationships for the generation sampled, for
example in remembering dates of birthdays. If the
experience of both partners has been that the
wives remember these details and the husbands
rely on their wives for this information, then this
may have led to both partners reporting that the
wives experience fewer memory failures (see also
Hultsch, Herzog, & Dixon, 1987).
Whether the consequences of prospective
memory failures are serious or not, they will lead
to a certain degree of frustration both for those
who commit them and those affected by them. In
the present sample, the carers (generally family
members) reported being more frustrated with the
prospective memory failures of the person in their
care than with their retrospective memory fail-
ures. This appears to be the first demonstration
that prospective memory problems give rise to

more stress in caregivers than retrospective
memory problems. It is often reported that caring
for an elderly relative with cognitive impairments
or mental problems is more emotionally stressful
than looking after someone with physical dis-
abilities (Issacs, 1971; Poulshock & Deimling,
1984). Morris, Morris, and Britton (1988) sug-
gested that this is probably due to the fact that the
problems of a dementia sufferer cause large-scale
changes in the caregiver’s lifestyle and disruption
to the relationship between caregiver and patient
(see also George & Gwyther, 1986). The present
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results from a larger sample of Alzheimer Disease
patients and their carers suggest that the impact of
prospective memory failures in Alzheimer Dis-
ease patients on the everyday lives of their carers
does appear to be more serious than the impact of
retrospective memory failures. This may account
for the anecdotal evidence (McKitrick et al., 1992)
that carers report more prospective memory fail-
ures than retrospective memory failures in the
patients under their care.
The prospective memory/retrospective mem-
ory questionnaire may be a potentially useful tool
for investigating differences in frequency of
memory errors in non-patient samples. The ceiling
effect apparent in the carers’ ratings of Alzheimer
Disease patients’ errors indicates that the scale
may need to be adapted to increase its sensitivity
to allow more extensive clinical use. However, the
questionnaire can be used to gather a large
amount of data quickly and easily, and can be
administered in different languages.1 The ques-
tionnaire allowed successful comparison between
the relative frequencies of complaints which stem
from retrospective memory and prospective
memory failures in a normal population. Pro-
spective memory errors do seem to be more
frustrating to the carers of Alzheimer Disease
patients than retrospective memory errors. This
reinforces the idea that prospective memory is
important for patients and their carers, in part
because of the stress brought about by having to
monitor and suffer consequences of prospective
memory failures, but also because of the major
change in life and relationships this type of
problem can bring.
Manuscript received 20 September 1999
Manuscript accepted 17 April 2000
1
Standardised versions of this questionnaire are available
in English, Italian, and German.
PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE MEMORY 319
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APPENDIX A
QUESTION CATEGORIES AND
ORDERING
The figures in brackets indicate the order in which each ques-
tion (1–16) appeared on the questionnaire. The questions
appeared in the same order in each version of the ques-
tionnaire. Participants were not informed that the questions
belonged to particular categories.
Prospective short-term self-cued
Do you decide to do something in a few minutes’ time and then
forget to do it? (1)
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Do you forget to tell someone something you had meant to
mention a few minutes ago? (16)
Prospective short-term environmentally-cued
Do you fail to do something you were supposed to do a few
minutes later even though it’s there in front of you, like take a
pill or turn off the kettle? (3)
Do you intend to take something with you, before leaving a
room or going out, but minutes later leave it behind, even
though it’s there in front of you? (10)
Prospective long-term self-cued
Do you forget appointments if you are not prompted by
someone else or by a reminder such as a calendar or diary? (5)
If you tried to contact a friend or relative who was out, would
you forget to try again later? (14)
Prospective long-term environmentally-cued
Do you forget to buy something you planned to buy, like a
birthday card, even when you see the shop? (7)
Do you fail to mention or give something to a visitor that you
were asked to pass on? (12)
Retrospective short-term self-cued
Do you forget something that you were told a few minutes
before? (4)
Do you mislay something, that you have just put down, like a
magazine or glasses? (11)
Retrospective short-term environmentally-cued
Do you fail to recognise a character in a radio or television
show from scene to scene? (6)
Do you look at something without realising you have seen it
moments before? (13)
Retrospective long-term self-cued
Do you fail to recall things that have happened to you in the
last few days? (8)
Do you forget what you watched on television the previous
day? (15)
Retrospective long-term environmentally-cued
Do you fail to recognise a place you have visited before? (2)
Do you repeat the same story to the same person on different
occasions? (9)
PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE MEMORY 321
APPENDIX B
INSTRUCTIONS
Carers rating patients
The following questions are about minor memory mistakes
which everyone makes from time to time, but some of them
happen more often than others. We would like you to tell us
how often these things happen to the person you care for.
Please indicate this by ticking the appropriate box. Please
make sure you answer all of the questions on both sides of the
sheet, even if they don’t seem entirely applicable to your
situation.
Carers self-rating
The following questions are about minor memory mistakes
which everyone makes from time to time, but some of them
happen more often than others. We would like you to tell us
how often these things happen to you. Please indicate this by
ticking the appropriate box. Please make sure you answer all of
the questions on both sides of the sheet even if they don’t seem
entirely applicable to your situation.
Controls
In order to understand why people make memory mistakes, we
need to find out about the kinds of mistakes people make, and
how often they are made in normal everyday life. We would
like you to tell us how often these kinds of things happen to
you. Please indicate this by ticking the appropriate box. Please
make sure you answer all of the questions on both sides of the
sheet even if they don’t seem entirely applicable to your
situation.
Married couples self-rating
(As for Controls)
Married couples rating spouse
The following questions are about minor memory mistakes
which everyone makes from time to time, but some of them
happen more often than others. We would like you to tell us
how often in your opinion these things happen to your spouse.
Please indicate this by ticking the appropriate box. Please
make sure you answer all of the questions on both sides of the
sheet even if they don’t seem entirely applicable to your
situation.
I am completing this questionnaire about my husband/wife
(circle as appropriate)