Does episodic future thinking improve prospective remembering?

•The present Experiment consisted of two sessions occurring in two consecutive days.•Participants envisioned the future event on the first day and performed the prospective memory task on the second day.•Episodic future thinking increased prospective remembering as compared to control conditions. Ex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Consciousness and cognition 2014-01, Vol.23, p.53-62
Main Authors: Neroni, Maria Adriana, Gamboz, Nadia, Brandimonte, Maria A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Decision Making - physiology
Episodic future thinking
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Imagery
Imagination - physiology
Learning. Memory
Male
Memory
Memory, Episodic
Middle Aged
Neuropsychological Tests - statistics & numerical data
Prospective memory
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time - physiology
Task Performance and Analysis
Thinking - physiology
Young Adult
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Summary:•The present Experiment consisted of two sessions occurring in two consecutive days.•Participants envisioned the future event on the first day and performed the prospective memory task on the second day.•Episodic future thinking increased prospective remembering as compared to control conditions. Extant findings suggest interesting avenues for the investigation of the potential relationship between EFT and PM. However, as they stand, they are inconclusive as to the causal role that EFT may play in aiding prospective remembering. In one Experiment, we showed that accuracy in a prospective memory (PM) task performed on the second day was significantly higher when participants, on the first day, had mentally simulated the sequence of events expected to occur on the second day, including the PM task, than when they had performed control tasks. These data extend previous findings on the functional benefit of future simulations in different domains by revealing a substantial facilitation effect of future-oriented thoughts on PM performance when the mentally simulated future task matched the actually executed task.
ISSN:1053-8100
1090-2376
DOI:10.1016/j.concog.2013.12.001