101
|
|
102
|
The development of episodic foresight: emerging concepts and methods. ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2011; 40:95-137. [PMID: 21887960 DOI: 10.1016/b978-0-12-386491-8.00003-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Episodic foresight is here defined as the ability to project oneself into the future and mentally simulate situations and outcomes. Tasks used to study the development of episodic foresight in young children are reviewed and compared to tasks used to study other future-oriented abilities (planning, delay of gratification, and prospective memory) in the same age-group. We argue for the importance of accounting for and minimizing the role of other cognitive demands in research tasks. Because episodic foresight is an emerging ability in young children, more research needs to be directed at the contexts in which it emerges and the extent to which episodic foresight is part of a growing ability for mental representation.
Collapse
|
103
|
Naito M, Suzuki T. “When did I learn and when shall I act?”: The developmental relationship between episodic future thinking and memory. J Exp Child Psychol 2011; 109:397-411. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2011.03.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2010] [Revised: 03/04/2011] [Accepted: 03/09/2011] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
|
104
|
Croker S, Buchanan H. Scientific reasoning in a real-world context: The effect of prior belief and outcome on children's hypothesis-testing strategies. BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2011; 29:409-24. [PMID: 21848738 DOI: 10.1348/026151010x496906] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
|
105
|
|
106
|
Salmon K, Mewton L, Pipe ME, McDonald S. Asking Parents to Prepare Children for an Event: Altering Parental Instructions Influences Children's Recall. JOURNAL OF COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT 2011. [DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2010.496708] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
|
107
|
Busby JG, Suddendorf T. Young children's ability to distinguish past and future changes in physical and mental states. BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2010; 28:853-70. [DOI: 10.1348/026151009x482930] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
|
108
|
Cheke LG, Clayton NS. Mental time travel in animals. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2010; 1:915-930. [PMID: 26271786 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.59] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Lucy G Cheke
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1TN, UK
| | - Nicola S Clayton
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1TN, UK
| |
Collapse
|
109
|
Perner J, Kloo D, Rohwer M. Retro- and prospection for mental time travel: emergence of episodic remembering and mental rotation in 5- to 8-year old children. Conscious Cogn 2010; 19:802-15. [PMID: 20650660 PMCID: PMC2949575 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2010.06.022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/27/2009] [Revised: 06/25/2010] [Accepted: 06/28/2010] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
We investigate the common development of children's ability to "look back in time" (retrospection, episodic remembering) and to "look into the future" (prospection). Experiment 1 with 59 children 5 to 8.5 years old showed mental rotation, as a measure of prospection, explaining specific variance of free recall, as a measure of episodic remembering (retrospection) when controlled for cued recall. Experiment 2 with 31 children from 5 to 6.5 years measured episodic remembering with recall of visually experienced events (seeing which picture was placed inside a box) when controlling for recall of indirectly conveyed events (being informed about the pictures placed inside the box by showing the pictures on a monitor). Quite unexpectedly rotators were markedly worse on indirect items than non-rotators. We speculate that with the ability to rotate children switch from knowledge retrieval to episodic remembering, which maintains success for experienced events but has detrimental effects for indirect information.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Josef Perner
- Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Austria.
| | | | | |
Collapse
|
110
|
|
111
|
Abstract
The ability to mentally simulate hypothetical scenarios is a rapidly growing area of research in both psychology and neuroscience. Episodic future thought, or the ability to simulate specific personal episodes that may potentially occur in the future, represents one facet of this general capacity that continues to garner a considerable amount of interest. The purpose of this article is to elucidate current knowledge and identify a number of unresolved issues regarding this specific mental ability. In particular, this article focuses on recent research findings from neuroimaging, neuropsychology, and clinical psychology that have demonstrated a close relation between episodic future thought and the ability to remember personal episodes from one’s past. On the other hand, considerations of the role of abstracted (semantic) representations in episodic future thought have been noticeably absent in the literature. The final section of this article proposes that both episodic and semantic memory play an important role in the construction of episodic future thoughts and that their interaction in this process may be determined by the relative accessibility of information in memory.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Karl K. Szpunar
- Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
| |
Collapse
|
112
|
Suddendorf T, Nielsen M, von Gehlen R. Children’s capacity to remember a novel problem and to secure its future solution. Dev Sci 2010; 14:26-33. [PMID: 21159085 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.00950.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 124] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Thomas Suddendorf
- School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
| | | | | |
Collapse
|
113
|
Quon E, Atance CM. A Comparison of Preschoolers' Memory, Knowledge, and Anticipation of Events. JOURNAL OF COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT 2010. [DOI: 10.1080/15248370903453576] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
|
114
|
Busby Grant J, Suddendorf T. Preschoolers begin to differentiate the times of events from throughout the lifespan. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2009. [DOI: 10.1080/17405620802102947] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
|
115
|
Winters N, Mor Y. Dealing with abstraction: Case study generalisation as a method for eliciting design patterns. COMPUTERS IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR 2009. [DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2009.01.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
|
116
|
Pupillometric and behavioral markers of a developmental shift in the temporal dynamics of cognitive control. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2009; 106:5529-33. [PMID: 19321427 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0810002106] [Citation(s) in RCA: 203] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
The capacity to anticipate and prepare for future events is thought to be critical for cognitive control. Dominant accounts of cognitive control treat the developing system as merely a weaker version of the adult system, progressively strengthening over time. Using the AX Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT) in combination with high-resolution pupillometry, we find that whereas 8-year-old children resemble adults in their proactive use of cognitive control, 3.5-year-old children exhibit a qualitatively different, reactive form of cognitive control, responding to events only as they unfold and retrieving information from memory as needed in the moment. These results demonstrate the need to reconsider the origins of cognitive control and the basis for children's behaviors across domains.
Collapse
|
117
|
Raby C, Clayton N. Prospective cognition in animals. Behav Processes 2009; 80:314-24. [DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2008.12.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 95] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2008] [Revised: 12/01/2008] [Accepted: 12/07/2008] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
|
118
|
The development and coherence of future-oriented behaviors during the preschool years. J Exp Child Psychol 2009; 102:379-91. [PMID: 19232416 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2009.01.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 120] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2007] [Revised: 01/07/2009] [Accepted: 01/08/2009] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Although previous research has identified a number of interesting aspects of future thinking in adults, little is known about the developmental trajectory and coherence of future-oriented behaviors during early childhood. The primary goal of this study was to explore these issues by administering a battery of tasks assessing different aspects of future thinking, including mental time travel, delay of gratification, planning, and prospective memory, to 72 preschoolers. Results revealed that performance on all of the tasks increased significantly between 3 and 5 years of age. Although most tasks were correlated, suggesting "behavioral" coherence, many of these significant correlations dropped out once age and receptive vocabulary were controlled. These results are discussed with respect to theories about, and measurement of, future orientation.
Collapse
|
119
|
McColgan KL, McCormack T. Searching and planning: young children's reasoning about past and future event sequences. Child Dev 2009; 79:1477-97. [PMID: 18826537 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01200.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 54] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Six experiments examined children's ability to make inferences using temporal order information. Children completed versions of a task involving a toy zoo; one version required reasoning about past events (search task) and the other required reasoning about future events (planning task). Children younger than 5 years failed both the search and the planning tasks, whereas 5-year-olds passed both (Experiments 1 and 2). However, when the number of events in the sequence was reduced (Experiment 3), 4-year-olds were successful on the search task but not the planning task. Planning difficulties persisted even when relevant cues were provided (Experiments 4 and 5). Experiment 6 showed that improved performance on the search task found in Experiment 3 was not due to the removal of response ambiguity.
Collapse
|
120
|
Szpunar KK, Chan JCK, McDermott KB. Contextual processing in episodic future thought. Cereb Cortex 2008; 19:1539-48. [PMID: 18980949 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhn191] [Citation(s) in RCA: 97] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Remembering events from one's past (i.e., episodic memory) and envisioning specific events that could occur in one's future (i.e., episodic future thought) invoke highly overlapping sets of brain regions. The present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging to test the hypothesis that one source of this shared architecture is that episodic future thought--much like episodic memory--tends to invoke memory for known visual-spatial contexts. That is, regions of posterior cortex (within posterior cingulate cortex [PCC], parahippocampal cortex [PHC], and superior occipital gyrus [SOG]) elicit indistinguishable activity during remembering and episodic future thought, and similar regions have been identified as important for establishing visual-spatial contextual associations. In the present study, these regions were similarly engaged when participants thought about personal events in familiar contexts, irrespective of temporal direction (past or future). The same regions, however, exhibited very little activity when participants envisioned personal future events in unfamiliar contextual settings. These findings suggest that regions within PCC, PHC, and SOG support the activation of well-known contextual settings that people tend to imagine when thinking about personal events, whether in the past or future. Hence, this study pinpoints an important similarity between episodic future thought and episodic memory.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Karl K Szpunar
- Department of Psychology, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO 63130, USA.
| | | | | |
Collapse
|
121
|
Abstract
The study of future thinking is gaining momentum across various domains of psychology. Mentally projecting the self forward in time (i.e., mental time travel) is argued to be uniquely human and of vital importance to the evolution of human culture. Yet it is only recently that developmentalists have begun to study when, and how, this capacity emerges. I begin by outlining the concept of mental time travel, along with newly developed methodologies to test children's ability to mentally project the self into the future. Data suggest that this ability is in place by ages 4 or 5 but also reveal conditions under which children may experience difficulty accurately predicting their future desires. I conclude by discussing how the research on children's mental time travel can be used to further our understanding of the development of future-oriented behaviors, including planning and delaying gratification.
Collapse
|
122
|
Salmon K, Champion F, Pipe ME, Mewton L, McDonald S. The child in time: The influence of parent–child discussion about a future experience on how it is remembered. Memory 2008; 16:485-99. [DOI: 10.1080/09658210802036112] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
|
123
|
Szpunar KK, McDermott KB. Episodic future thought and its relation to remembering: Evidence from ratings of subjective experience. Conscious Cogn 2008; 17:330-4. [PMID: 17540581 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2007.04.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 131] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2006] [Revised: 03/21/2007] [Accepted: 04/21/2007] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
The goal of the present study was to examine the hypothesis that the ability to construct vivid mental images of the future involves sampling the contents of memory. In two experiments, participants envisioned future scenarios occurring in contextual settings that were represented in memory in varying degrees of perceptual detail. In both experiments, detailed contextual settings were associated with more detailed images of the future and a stronger subjective experience. Our findings suggest that the contents of memory are routinely sampled during the construction of personal future scenarios.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Karl K Szpunar
- Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
| | | |
Collapse
|
124
|
The evolution of foresight: What is mental time travel, and is it unique to humans? Behav Brain Sci 2008; 30:299-313; discussion 313-51. [PMID: 17963565 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x07001975] [Citation(s) in RCA: 864] [Impact Index Per Article: 54.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
In a dynamic world, mechanisms allowing prediction of future situations can provide a selective advantage. We suggest that memory systems differ in the degree of flexibility they offer for anticipatory behavior and put forward a corresponding taxonomy of prospection. The adaptive advantage of any memory system can only lie in what it contributes for future survival. The most flexible is episodic memory, which we suggest is part of a more general faculty of mental time travel that allows us not only to go back in time, but also to foresee, plan, and shape virtually any specific future event. We review comparative studies and find that, in spite of increased research in the area, there is as yet no convincing evidence for mental time travel in nonhuman animals. We submit that mental time travel is not an encapsulated cognitive system, but instead comprises several subsidiary mechanisms. A theater metaphor serves as an analogy for the kind of mechanisms required for effective mental time travel. We propose that future research should consider these mechanisms in addition to direct evidence of future-directed action. We maintain that the emergence of mental time travel in evolution was a crucial step towards our current success.
Collapse
|
125
|
Atance CM. Chapter 1.7 From the past into the future: the developmental origins and trajectory of episodic future thinking. HANDBOOK OF EPISODIC MEMORY 2008. [DOI: 10.1016/s1569-7339(08)00207-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
|
126
|
D'Argembeau A, Xue G, Lu ZL, Van der Linden M, Bechara A. Neural correlates of envisioning emotional events in the near and far future. Neuroimage 2007; 40:398-407. [PMID: 18164213 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.11.025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 147] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/28/2007] [Revised: 11/06/2007] [Accepted: 11/19/2007] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Being able to envision emotional events that might happen in the future has a clear adaptive value. This study addressed the functional neuroanatomy of this process and investigated whether it is modulated by temporal distance. Participants imagined positive and negative events pertaining to the near future or far future while their brain activity was measured with fMRI. The results demonstrate that the anterior part of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) was more active in envisioning emotional events in the far future than in the near future, whereas the caudate nucleus was engaged in envisioning emotional (especially positive) situations in the near future. We argue that the anterior part of the vmPFC might assign emotional values to mental representations of future events that pertain to long-term goals. On the other hand, the caudate might support more concrete simulations of action plans to achieve rewarding situations in the near future.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Arnaud D'Argembeau
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of Liège, Boulevard du rectorat 3 (B33), Liège, Belgium.
| | | | | | | | | |
Collapse
|
127
|
Abstract
AbstractActing in the present in anticipation of the future is argued to be a behavioral correlate of mental time travel (MTT). Yet, it is important to consider how other future-directed behaviors – including planning, delay of gratification, and acts of prospective memory – figure into a theory of MTT and future thinking more broadly. Developmental science can help in this formulation.
Collapse
|
128
|
Jaaniste T, Hayes B, von Baeyer CL. Providing children with information about forthcoming medical procedures: A review and synthesis. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2007. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2850.2007.00072.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 85] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
|
129
|
Salmon K, Yao J, Berntsen O, Pipe ME. Does providing props during preparation help children to remember a novel event? J Exp Child Psychol 2007; 97:99-116. [PMID: 17328907 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2007.01.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2006] [Revised: 01/02/2007] [Accepted: 01/04/2007] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
We investigated the conditions under which preparatory information presented 1 day before a novel event influenced 6-year-olds' recall 1 week later. Children were assigned to one of six experimental conditions. Three conditions involved preparatory information that described the event accurately but differed according to the presence and type of props (verbal, real props, and toy props). In two conditions, which also differed according to whether verbal information was supplemented with real props, half of the preparatory information described the event accurately, whereas the other half was thematically similar to, but inconsistent with, the event (misleading verbal and misleading props). Compared with the attentional control condition, all forms of preparation that described the event accurately increased correct recall. Preparation that included props improved photograph recognition. When half of the accurate information was replaced by misleading information, the positive benefit on recall was reduced, and when misleading props accompanied the misleading information, errors increased. The potential underlying mechanisms and implications for pediatric settings are discussed.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Karen Salmon
- School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia.
| | | | | | | |
Collapse
|
130
|
Raby CR, Alexis DM, Dickinson A, Clayton NS. Planning for the future by western scrub-jays. Nature 2007; 445:919-21. [PMID: 17314979 DOI: 10.1038/nature05575] [Citation(s) in RCA: 307] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2006] [Accepted: 01/08/2007] [Indexed: 02/03/2023]
Abstract
Knowledge of and planning for the future is a complex skill that is considered by many to be uniquely human. We are not born with it; children develop a sense of the future at around the age of two and some planning ability by only the age of four to five. According to the Bischof-Köhler hypothesis, only humans can dissociate themselves from their current motivation and take action for future needs: other animals are incapable of anticipating future needs, and any future-oriented behaviours they exhibit are either fixed action patterns or cued by their current motivational state. The experiments described here test whether a member of the corvid family, the western scrub-jay (Aphelocoma californica), plans for the future. We show that the jays make provision for a future need, both by preferentially caching food in a place in which they have learned that they will be hungry the following morning and by differentially storing a particular food in a place in which that type of food will not be available the next morning. Previous studies have shown that, in accord with the Bischof-Köhler hypothesis, rats and pigeons may solve tasks by encoding the future but only over very short time scales. Although some primates and corvids take actions now that are based on their future consequences, these have not been shown to be selected with reference to future motivational states, or without extensive reinforcement of the anticipatory act. The results described here suggest that the jays can spontaneously plan for tomorrow without reference to their current motivational state, thereby challenging the idea that this is a uniquely human ability.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- C R Raby
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK
| | | | | | | |
Collapse
|
131
|
|