Committee Chair

Clark, Amanda J.

Committee Member

Warren, Amye; Shelton, Jill

Department

Dept. of Psychology

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

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.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge my mentor, advisor, and friend, Dr. Amanda Clark. You have guided me toward this moment for nearly half a decade. There are no words I can conjure to express the gratitude and admiration I have for you. All this time, you saw something in me I couldn’t. This pushed me to become the student and researcher you knew I could be. Your words of encouragement and patience have guided me towards success. I would also like to thank my thesis committee members for their time and guidance throughout the thesis process. I would also like to thank my lab mate, Chris Branson, for aiding me with data collection and imputation. Your help has been invaluable. I would like to thank Sarah Finley and Carrie LeMay for believing in me, and allowing me to annoy them while working in the lab. Finally, I would like to thank my classmates and colleagues within the psychology department. You have all been a delight to work with.

Degree

M. S.; A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science.

Date

5-2016

Subject

Prospective memory; Cognition-- Psychological aspects

Discipline

Psychology

Document Type

Masters theses

DCMI Type

Text

Extent

x, 59 leaves

Language

English

Rights

https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Psychology Commons

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