Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 2008, 49, 11–18 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2007.00600.x © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0036-5564. Blackwell Publishing Ltd Cognition and Neurosciences The Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ): Factorial structure, relations to global subjective memory ratings, and Swedish norms MICHAEL RÖNNLUND, 1 TIMO MÄNTYLÄ 1 and LARS-GÖRAN NILSSON 2,3 1 Department of Psychology, University of Umeå, Sweden 2 Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden 3 Stockholm Brain Institute, Sweden Rönnlund, M., Mäntylä, T. & Nilsson, L.-G. (2008). The Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ): Factorial structure, relations to global subjective memory ratings, and Swedish norms. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology , 49, 11–18. The factorial structure of the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ; Smith et al., 2000) was examined in a Swedish population based sample (N = 540, age range; 35–90 years). Concurrent validity was assessed by relating PRMQ to global ratings of memory. Confirmatory factor analyses of the PRMQ items indicated a superior fit of a three-factor model, with prospective and retrospective memory as orthogonal factors and episodic memory as a common factor. Furthermore, the PRMQ scales correlated with the global ratings of memory, suggesting that each rating contributed with unique variance in predicting PRMQ scores. Given differences in levels of complaints as compared with prior research (Crawford et al., 2003) norms for the Swedish version are provided. In conclusion, the present findings extend earlier work by providing additional support for the construct and concurrent validity of the PRMQ scales. Key words: PRMQ, prospective memory, retrospective memory, memory failure, self-reports, confirmatory factor analysis. Michael Rönnlund, Department of Psychology, Umeå University, 90187 Umeå, Sweden. E-mail: michael.ronnlund@psy.umu.se INTRODUCTION Research on episodic memory has relied heavily on objective performance measures typically targeting memory for past events (i.e., recognition and recall). More recently, research on a complementary aspect of episodic memory, namely prospective memory, which concerns memory for intentions (tasks to be carried out on some future occasion), has sparked the development of a new class of memory measures (for an overview, see Brandimonte, Einstein & McDaniel, 1996). Recent years has in addition seen an increased interest in self-reported memory functioning and particularly in the relation between various aspects of subjective memory reports/complaints and objective memory performance in healthy (e.g., Hertzog, Park, Morrell & Martin, 2000; Pearman & Storandt, 2004) and clinical samples (e.g., Kliegel, Zimprich & Eschen, 2005). As a tool for examining self-reported failures of prospec- tive and retrospective remembering, Smith, Della Sala, Logie and Maylor (2000) designed a questionnaire that they labelled the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ). The PRMQ consists of 16 questions, half of which concerns everyday prospective memory failures (e.g., “Do you forget appointments if you are not prompted by someone else or by a reminder such as a calendar or diary?”) and the other half concerns retrospective memory failures (e.g., “Do you fail to recall things that have happened to you in the last few days?”). The development of new instruments should be accompanied by careful validation. With regard to the factorial validity of the PRMQ a study by Crawford, Smith, Maylor, Della Sala and Logie (2003) used confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) to test a number of alternative models to see which of these best represented the covariance among the included items. On the basis of various fit indices a tripartite model with a general factor (labelled “general memory”) and two ortho- gonal factors reflecting the prospective and retrospective components were deemed as the best model. With regard to predictive validity of the PRMQ, the original study by Smith et al . (2000) further confirmed an increased number of memory failures, prospective failures in particular, in a group of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease (based on carer ratings) in comparison with young and elderly participants without dementia diagnoses. In a similar vein a study by Mäntylä (2003) reported a higher prevalence of retrospective and prospective memory failures as assessed by the PRMQ subscales in a sample of women classified as self-reporters (i.e., reporting having problems with prospective memory, or ,“remembering to remember”) as compared with a matched group of non-reporters. In addi- tion, the reporters showed particular deficits with regard to objective measures of prospective (but not retrospective) memory in comparison with the non-reporters. The present study had two main objectives. The first was to examine the extent to which the results pertaining to comparing competing models of the factorial structure of the