The Emergence of Episodic Foresight and Its Consequences

Abstract

Imagining future events and adjusting current behavior accordingly is a hallmark of human cognition. The development of such episodic foresight is attracting increasing research attention. In this article, I review a selection of recent work on the emergence of episodic foresight and its role in different domains, including learning, deliberate practice, affective forecasting, intertemporal choices, and anxiety. Studies suggest that during the preschool years, children begin to consider future scenarios, enabling them to plan, prepare, and shape their future, but many other consequences, such as the role of developing foresight in anticipating hazards, remain unexamined. The potential predictive effects of early individual differences in episodic foresight on later cognitive capacities and developmental outcomes deserve closer scrutiny.

Children's Selective Trust in Promises

“…One explanation for this later developmental onset is that selective trust in promises may be more taxing for younger children than selective trust in assertions (i.e., the speech act commonly used in testimony studies): (a) Selective trust in promises requires children to integrate information about speakers’ past behavior, their present intentions, and expectations about their future behavior, while selective trust in assertions only requires an integration of past and present information. Only from the late preschool years onwards are children able to imagine, plan and predict future events (Suddendorf, ), which may explain why younger children struggle to selectively trust promises, but not assertions. (b) While assertions express beliefs, promises express intentions.…”

Bias in predicted and remembered emotion

“…In nonclinical populations, retrospection and prospection are affected by similar experimental manipulations [4] and have similar developmental trajectories [5].…”

The effect of episodic future simulation and motivation on young children’s induced-state episodic foresight

“…The body of literature on the development of EpF broadly suggests that the ability to think about the future emerges between the ages of 2- and 3-years ( Suddendorf, 2017 ), when children begin to contribute their own plans and ideas to conversations about the future ( Hudson, 2002 ). By 3-years of age children can prepare for future events as well as discuss the future ( Atance & Meltzoff, 2005 ; Busby & Suddendorf, 2005 ) but still show some limitations in their EpF abilities.…”