Mother knows best… or does she? Perceptions of the memory abilities of pediatric patients with epilepsy as reported by patients and their parents across time.

Purpose: This study compared the self-reported and parent-reported memory of children with epilepsy across time and explored the relationships between these measures of subjective memory and the children's actual performance on objective neuropsychological tests.

Method: One-hundred and nineteen children with epilepsy who were surgical candidates underwent comprehensive neuropsychological testing that included the Everyday Verbal Memory Questionnaire (EVMQ). Each child's parent and 82 of the children themselves completed the appropriate version of this subjective memory measure.

Compared to what? The effects of a frame of reference on older adults' subjective memory.

It is often unclear what comparisons older adults make when evaluating their own memory. If thinking about their memory relative to others, they may assess their own abilities differently than if comparing it to their past capabilities. To test the effect of reference frames on memory assessments and memory performance, we randomly assigned 120 older adults to one of three conditions in which we manipulated frames of reference (control, past-self comparison, or other adults comparison) on a memory self-efficacy questionnaire.