Studies that investigate time-based complex prospective memory (PM) functioning in participants with substance use disorders (SUD) in consideration of different PM-phases (planning, retention, initiation, execution) are lacking. This study was designed to investigate performance of young adults with DSM-5 tobacco use disorder (TUD) and healthy controls (HC) in different phases of complex PM. Community participants aged 18–35 (N = 43) completed the modified Six Elements Test that includes the PM-phases planning, retention, initiation, and execution of a time-based complex PM-task (with delay phases and background activities). TUD participants were current daily smokers and fulfilled at least two DSM-5 TUD criteria. TUD did not differ significantly from HC in task planning errors and timely task initiation. No group differences showed in rule adherence and completeness during task conduction (execution). During execution, TUD showed significantly more deviations (Coef. 0.45; p = 0.005) from their originally remembered plans than HC. Young adults with relatively mild TUD do not show general impairments in all phases of short-term, complex, and time-based PM. Future research may investigate whether a greater risk of deviation from originally remembered plans in TUD could play a role in the progression and cessation of smoking behavior.

Some studies have found that prospective memory (PM) cues which are emotionally valenced influence age effects in prospective remembering, but it remains unclear whether this effect reflects the operation of processes implemented at encoding or retrieval. In addition, none of the prior ageing studies of valence on PM function have examined potential costs of engaging in different valence conditions, or resource allocation trade-offs between the PM and the ongoing task. In the present study, younger, young-old and old-old adults completed a PM task in which the valence of the cues varied systematically (positive, negative or neutral) at encoding, but was kept constant (neutral) at retrieval. The results indicated that PM accuracy did not vary as a function of affect at encoding, and that this effect did not interact with age group. There was also no main or interaction effect of valence on PM reaction time in PM cue trials, indicating that valence costs across the three encoding conditions were equivalent. Old-old adults’ PM accuracy was reduced relative to both young-old and younger adults. Prospective remembering incurred dual-task costs for all three groups. Analyses of reaction time data suggested that for both young-old and old-old, these costs were greater, implying differential resource allocation cost trade-offs. However, when reaction time data were expressed as a proportional change that adjusted for the general slowing of the older adults, costs did not differ as a function of group.

Younger and older adults differ in performance on a range of social–cognitive skills, with older adults having difficulties in decoding nonverbal cues to emotion and intentions. Such skills are likely to be important when deciding whether someone is being sarcastic. In the current study we investigated in a life span sample whether there are age-related differences in the interpretation of sarcastic statements. Using both video and verbal materials, 116 participants aged between 18 and 86 completed judgments about whether statements should be interpreted literally or sarcastically. For the verbal stories task, older adults were poorer at understanding sarcastic intent compared with younger and middle-aged participants, but there was no age difference in interpreting control stories. For the video task, older adults showed poorer understanding of sarcastic exchanges compared with younger and middle-aged counterparts, but there was no age difference in understanding the meaning of sincere interactions. For the videos task, the age differences were mediated by the ability to perceive facial expressions of emotion. Age effects could not be explained in terms of variance in working memory. These results indicate that increased age is associated with specific difficulties in using nonverbal and contextual cues to understand sarcastic intent.