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Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research 3/2019

31-08-2017 | Original Article

Episodic future thinking improves children’s prospective memory performance in a complex task setting with real life task demands

Auteurs: A. Kretschmer-Trendowicz, K. M. Schnitzspahn, L. Reuter, M. Altgassen

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 3/2019

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Abstract

Research on children’s prospective memory (PM) shows an increase of performance across childhood and provides first evidence that encoding strategies such as episodic future thinking (EFT; i.e., engaging in a vivid prospection of oneself performing future tasks) may improve performance. The present study aimed at testing whether the beneficial effects of EFT extend from typical lab-based tasks to more complex tasks with real life demands. Further, it was tested whether children’s ability to project themselves into different perspectives (i.e., self-projection) moderates the effects of EFT encoding on PM. Overall, 56 children (mean age: M = 10.73 years) were included in this study who were randomly assigned to either an EFT or control condition. Children participated in a ‘sightseeing tour’ (ongoing activity) inside the lab with various socially relevant and neutral PM tasks embedded. Results showed significantly higher PM performance in the EFT compared to the control group. There was no difference between neutral and social PM tasks and no interaction between type of PM tasks with encoding condition. Further, self-projection did not moderate the effects of EFT encoding on PM. Results suggest that EFT is an effective strategy to improve children’s everyday PM. These beneficial effects seem to occur independent from children’s general ability to change perspectives and for different types of PM tasks.
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1
With the growing number of studies on individuals’ abilities to mentally simulate future events, various terms have been developed to describe one and the same ability. Other terms for episodic future thinking are: future thinking, episodic foresight, prospection, mental time travel, memory for the future, pre-experiencing, proscopic chronesthesia, imagination (see also Buckner & Carroll, 2007).
 
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Metagegevens
Titel
Episodic future thinking improves children’s prospective memory performance in a complex task setting with real life task demands
Auteurs
A. Kretschmer-Trendowicz
K. M. Schnitzspahn
L. Reuter
M. Altgassen
Publicatiedatum
31-08-2017
Uitgeverij
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Gepubliceerd in
Psychological Research / Uitgave 3/2019
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-017-0908-0

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