Matthias Kliegel (Director Geneva Aging Research Center (CIGEV), Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation, Université de Genève) has been invited by Angelo Arleo to hold a talk on Tuesday 20 September, 4.30 p.m. , in the conference room of the UCL , 13 Rue Moreau.
This talk will be on "Why do we forget to take our medication? Prospective memory and aging"
Abstract
A fundamental aspect of goal-directed, intentional behavior entails the ability to plan and then to remember executing future activities, such as remembering to pass a message from school to parents, to take medication in time, or to add an attachment to an e-mail before sending it off. The interplay of cognitive abilities that constitute the process of “remembering to remember” is referred to as prospective memory (for overviews on different research areas see Kliegel, McDaniel & Einstein, 2008, Edited Book, Erlbaum). Prospective memory is an essential ability to meet everyday life challenges across the lifespan, constitutes a key element of developing autonomy and independence and is especially important in old age with increasing health-related prospective memory demands. Therefore, understanding mechanisms underlying prospective memory in old age has become a major effort in cognitive and developmental research. The present talk will review conceptual and empirical advances from our lab in understanding age differences and associated developmental mechanisms. Particularly, the role of meta-memory, how prospective memory is assessed in the lab and in everyday life and how it may be improved by training will be discussed.
Prof. Matthias Kliegel is a cognitive aging researcher who has received his PhD in psychology from the University of Heidelberg in 2002 and his habilitation from the University of Zurich in 2005. In 2007, he was appointed Full Professor and Chair of Lifespan Developmental Psychology at the University of Dresden. Since 2011 Matthias Kliegel has been working as Full Professor and Chair of Cognitive Aging at the University of Geneva, where he also is the director of the University of Geneva's Interfaculty Center of Gerontology (CIGEV). In 2017, he was elected president of the Swiss Psychological Society. His research is concerned with healthy aging and the development and plasticity of higher order cognitive functions such as intentional behavior and cognitive control as well as their neuro-cognitive mechanisms across the human lifespan. He has received numerous awards (e.g., Vontobel Aging Research Award, Leenaards Prize), research grants (e.g., from the Swiss National Science Foundation, German Research Foundation or Australian Research Council) and has published more than 350 research papers. Alumni from Matthias Kliegel's research group hold academic positions allover Europe and in North America.
