Response to the Veterinary Consortium for Research Animal Care and Welfare: Partnership Is the Point.

Prospective memory (PM) is the accurate recall and execution of an intention to perform a future task during ongoing tasks (). For adults, PM is crucial for everyday tasks, such as taking medications, attending appointments, or paying bills (), and PM errors comprise the most reported memory slips and may contribute to a reduced ability to function as people reach older adulthood (). As adults show age-related declines in PM, and PM errors predict cognitive decline and dementia, understanding the factors that impact PM has critical implications for maintaining adults’ independence as people age (). PM is a multifaceted ability, typically characterized as either event- or time-based tasks. An adult may plan to take medication after finishing dinner, which is an event-based PM task, whereas planning to take medication at a specific time is instead considered time-based (). Both involve encoding of a delayed intention, completion of ongoing tasks during a delay, monitoring for the relevant cue to trigger retrieval of the intention, inhibition of the ongoing task, and shifting to the PM task (). As a result, executive functioning and episodic memory are thought to be crucial components of PM. Recruitment of these cognitive functions varies by task type (): Cue-driven retrieval of a PM intention can occur through top-down monitoring of the cue, requiring updating of information in working memory, or automatic or spontaneous bottom-up retrieval, more closely tied to episodic memory (). Cue-driven retrieval depends partially on how the PM cue is processed as part of the ongoing task (i.e., the focality of the cue; ): Focal, event-based tasks promote spontaneous retrieval, leading to an intention “popping” into the mind (e.g., suddenly recalling the intention to buy bread after passing by a bakery; ). In contrast, time- and event-based tasks with non-focal cues (e.g., an intention to buy bread at 4:00 p.m. or after leaving work) engage greater executive abilities due to the need to disengage from the ongoing task to monitor for the PM cue (). Once a cue is detected, inhibition and shifting are recruited to disengage and to switch to the PM task (). As individuals age, executive functions (e.g., working memory, inhibition, etc.) decline (), which may influence changes in PM. Indeed, individual differences in executive abilities predict event- and time-based PM in older adults, but not in younger adults (). Similarly, age-related changes in event- and time-based PM are mediated by age-related changes in executive abilities (). This highlights the important role of executive abilities for supporting PM, especially as these functions decline across age (). As such, age-related declines in PM vary with executive control demands, with greater decline in time- and event-based tasks that require greater self-initiation (; ). Other executive processes also contribute to facets of PM performance (). Updating is thought to underpin the ability to maintain PM cues and intentions in working memory. Yet, whereas updating was correlated with PM accuracy in one study (; ), other findings do not show this association (). Methodological limitations may explain inconsistent findings, such as heterogeneity of ongoing tasks (). Similarly, inhibition and switching can contribute to PM (). However, few studies have comprehensively examined how executive abilities relate to PM in older adults.