Dementia-free older adults with subjective cognitive impairment show lower mood and no deficits of spontaneous memory retrieval

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether spontaneous retrieval deficits could be found in individuals with Subjective Cognitive Impairment (SCI). The sample consisted of 52 participants over 65 years of age (mean age = 76.00; SD = 7.48) with 11 males. We asked 26 individuals with SCI and 26 individuals without SCI to perform a prospective memory (PM) task that had previously demonstrated spontaneous retrieval deficits in individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment. The results did not demonstrate the expected differences in a PM task based on spontaneous retrieval [t(50) = −.05; p = .964, d = .01]. However, participants’ mood did predict their subjective memory complaints (β = −.51; p < .001) and their subjective assessment of their future memory performance (r = −.38; p < .01). The findings are in line with numerous studies which have shown that SCI is more related to mood disturbance than to objective cognitive functioning.