AbstractsPsychology

Remembering to complete a future task, known as prospective memory (PM), often requires expending attention toward monitoring for the opportunity to complete that task. Current research indicates a lack of evidence for an individual’s ability or propensity to monitor during laboratory PM tasks having any real-world correlate. This study assessed the relationship between monitoring during two PM tasks and performance during the UTC Multiple Errands Test (UTC-MET), a naturalistic measure of executive function. A sample of 8 healthy older adults was compared to 9 older adults diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. While accuracy on an eye-tracking PM task was a significant predictor of UTC-MET task completions, no other significant relationships were observed between these tasks. This suggests that laboratory-based PM performance is predictive of task completions when multiple goals must be considered simultaneously but other relationships between PM and executive functions remain unclear. Advisors/Committee Members: Clark, Amanda J., Warren, Amye, Shelton, Jill, College of Arts and Sciences.