Episodic future thinking and episodic counterfactual thinking: Intersections between memory and decisions

Abstract

This article considers two recent lines of research concerned with the construction of imagined or simulated events that can provide insight into the relationship between memory and decision making. One line of research concerns episodic future thinking, which involves simulating episodes that might occur in one’s personal future, and the other concerns episodic counterfactual thinking, which involves simulating episodes that could have happened in one’s personal past. We first review neuroimaging studies that have examined the neural underpinnings of episodic future thinking and episodic counterfactual thinking. We argue that these studies have revealed that the two forms of episodic simulation engage a common core network including medial parietal, prefrontal, and temporal regions that also supports episodic memory. We also note that neuroimaging studies have documented neural differences between episodic future thinking and episodic counterfactual thinking, including differences in hippocampal responses. We next consider behavioral studies that have delineated both similarities and differences between the two kinds of episodic simulation. The evidence indicates that episodic future and counterfactual thinking are characterized by similarly reduced levels of specific detail compared with episodic memory, but that the effects of repeatedly imagining a possible experience have sharply contrasting effects on the perceived plausibility of those events during episodic future thinking versus episodic counterfactual thinking. Finally, we conclude by discussing the functional consequences of future and counterfactual simulations for decisions.

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex supports affective future simulation by integrating distributed knowledge

“…In those situations, the capacity of episodic simulation conveys a particular adaptive benefit because it allows for the imagination of any possible event that can be constructed based on recombined details of the past (12,37,38). The mental experience can then shape future-oriented decisions (6,39,40).…”

A taxonomy of prospection: Introducing an organizational framework for future-oriented cognition

“…For instance, one could simulate how the past could have turned out differently (i.e., counterfactual simulation) (32,33). Nonetheless, episodic simulation is often directed at the future, and even past-oriented episodic simulations are often carried out in service of the future (34). Hence, episodic simulation represents an important form of prospective cognition.…”

“…88 and 89), we view decisions as end points of a process that may, depending on the influence of various heuristics and biases, use the various forms of future thinking discussed in this article (e.g., simulation, prediction, and planning) in the service of adaptive behavior (additional discussion in ref. 34).…”

Morality constrains the default representation of what is possible

“…There is also a small but growing body of research on how human adults deliberate and decide whether a given event is possible or impossible (12). In addition, there is an emerging literature on the neural substrates recruited when participants are instructed to engage in episodic counterfactual reasoning or simulation of possible future events (13,14).…”