Aging and performance on laboratory and naturalistic prospective memory tasks: The mediating role of executive flexibility and retrospective memory Barbara Azzopardi a, ⁎, Jacques Juhel a , Caroline Auffray a,b a Centre de Recherches en Psychologie, Cognition, Communication, European University of Brittany at Rennes, Rennes 2, France b Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France abstract article info Article history: Received 2 November 2014 Received in revised form 5 June 2015 Accepted 27 June 2015 Available online xxxx Keywords: Aging Prospective memory Naturalistic tasks Retrospective memory Executive flexibility Moderated mediation The current study investigates whether individual differences in retrospective memory and executive flexibility tasks mediate the relation between age and performance on laboratory and naturalistic prospective memory tasks. One hundred and ninety-seven people aged 61 to 95 years performed four laboratory prospective memory tasks, two naturalistic prospective memory tasks, an executive flexibility task and a retrospective memory task. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicate that the best measurement model for prospective memory tasks is a unidimensional model. Likewise, a bi-factor model consisting in a general “memory/speed” factor and an uncorrelated specific “executive flexibility” factor is the best measurement model for retrospective mem- ory and executive flexibility tasks. The latent variable mediation analysis conducted in the SEM framework shows that “executive flexibility” mainly operates as a mediator in the negative relationship between age and prospec- tive memory. Additionally the negative effect of age on prospective memory via “executive flexibility” increases significantly with the age of the participants. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Prospective memory refers to the ability to remember to initiate or to execute at the right time an action one has planned to do. This ability is critical for human adaptation to the environment and people rely on this type of memory every day. One must remember an appointment at a particular time, or must remember to take a medicine daily just be- fore having dinner. Prospective memory is thus crucial for maintaining autonomy in the elderly. This is one of the many reasons why for more than two decades a great number of studies have been investigat- ing the effect of aging on those mental processes that are brought into play when a person is to remember that s/he has to take a certain action at a particular time in the future. Few studies have examined prospective memory from an individual differences approach and it is still poorly understood which cognitive abilities best predict prospective memory in older adults. In one of the first studies on this issue, Maylor (1996) showed that prospective memory significantly correlated with age, r(113) = -.539 and that vocabulary, fluid intelligence and speed taken together accounted for about 30% of the variance in prospective memory when age independently accounted for an additional 17% of explained variance. The role of intelligence in the relationship between age and prospective memory can also be incriminated in some results showing little or no age-related declines in prospective memory performance (e.g., Cherry & LeCompte, 1999), on the hypothesis that this finding could be partially attributable to confounding age with verbal intelligence when compar- ing intelligent older adults with lesser intelligent younger adults (Uttl, 2006, 2008). These pieces of information suggest that while prospective memory performance is related to retrospective memory (e.g., Huppert, Johnson, & Nickson, 2000; Reese & Cherry, 2002) it is also, and maybe above all, related to cognitive resources such as processing speed, working memory capacity, fluid intelligence and a number of executive functions (e.g., Salthouse, Berish, & Siedlecki, 2004; Schnitzspahn, Stahl, Zeintl, Kaller, & Kliegel, 2013; Zeintl, Kliegel, & Hofer, 2007). The well- established effects of age on cognitive resources thus could explain why prospective memory may be particularly impaired in older people. Prospective memory is generally assessed within two broad catego- ries of situations, corresponding to two types of tasks that are classically opposed in the literature: laboratory prospective memory tasks vs. naturalistic prospective memory tasks. Laboratory prospective memory tasks are computer-based tasks more often than not inspired from Einstein and McDaniel's (1990) paradigm, a paradigm whereby partici- pants are placed in a dual task situation in order to simulate the carrying out of a prospective memory task in everyday life. The ongoing (i.e., the secondary) task may consist in memorizing words, naming famous Intelligence 52 (2015) 24–35 ⁎ Corresponding author at: CRPCC, EA 1285, Université Rennes 2, Campus Villejean, Place du Recteur Henri Le Moal, CS 24307, 35043 Rennes Cedex, France. E-mail address: barbara.azzopardi@gmail.com (B. Azzopardi). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2015.06.007 0160-2896/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Intelligence