When Reminders Fail to Eliminate Age Differences in Prospective Memory: The Role of Metacognitive Monitoring and Control

Prospective memory (PM) offloading -- setting reminders to support future intentions -- can help older adults mitigate age-related memory declines. However, prior research suggests they may not always fully benefit from available reminders. This study examined metacognitive factors influence age differences in PM offloading across three within-subjects conditions: forced internal (reminders set for no PM targets), forced external (reminders set for all PM targets), and choice (target-by-target reminder setting). Metacognitive monitoring was measured through judgments of learning that estimated how accurately participants believed they would remember the targets without reminders. Metacognitive control was indexed by the proportion of targets for which reminders were set in the choice block and by the frequency of reminder checking during retrieval, recorded via eye tracking. Although reminders improved PM, age-related declines in PM performance were not reduced in the forced or choice conditions. Older adults were overconfident in their performance predictions across all conditions (metacognitive monitoring error). They also did not set or check reminders more frequently than younger adults, despite having more to gain from doing so (metacognitive control error). These findings suggest that metacognitive errors may limit older adults' ability to fully capitalize on offloading strategies.