Gender and age differences in time-based prospective memory

The goal of this study was to identify gender and age differences in Time-Based Prospective Memory (TBPM). With ex-post facto method، one hundred participants were selected. Fifty participants were over 65 years old (25 males and 25 females) having BA degree and fifty participants were graduate students (25 males and 25 females). The DMDX software was employed to evaluate TBPM. The prospective memory (PM) task of this experiment required participants to click one of two buttons at 5-min intervals while responding to multiple-choice general information questions. Male and younger subjects outperformed the females and old adults during the PM tasks، respectively. A significant interaction between age and gender in PM tasks was noted as male participants demonstrated a poorer performance in PM tasks by age. Females committed more PM errors. Similarly in this group، older subjects had more PM errors. Gender and age variables appear to have significant effect on TBPM function. This might be possibly originated from or directly attributed to other cognition functions. Frontal and temporal lobe functions، IQ and especially the processing speed are expected to have tremendous effects on TBPM. Meanwhile، these functions are significantly influenced by aging. The marginally better working memory، perceptual organization factor and processing speed in men vs. women may partly explain gender differences in TBPM. Further studies are required to investigate the above notion in real-life setting.