What are the essential cognitive requirements for prospection (thinking about the future)?

Abstract

Placing the future center stage as a way of understanding cognition is gaining attention in psychology. The general modern label for this is “prospection” which refers to the process of representing and thinking about possible future states of the world. Several theorists have claimed that episodic and prospective memory, as well as hypothetical thinking (mental simulation) and conditional reasoning are necessary cognitive faculties that enable prospection. Given the limitations in current empirical efforts connecting these faculties to prospection, the aim of this mini review is to argue that the findings show that they are sufficient, but not necessary for prospection. As a result, the short concluding section gives an outline of an alternative conceptualization of prospection. The proposal is that the critical characteristics of prospection are the discovery of, and maintenance of goals via causal learning.

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

“…We have already highlighted the important role that extracting details from episodic memory plays in the context of episodic simulation. However, other cognitive processes, such as causal reasoning (83), manipulating extracted episodic details through executive resources (84), and scene construction (85), have also been proposed to feature prominently in the context of episodic simulation (additional discussion in ref. 12).…”

The execution of planned detours by spider-eating predators

“…We are not proposing that spiders “plan for breakfast” (Janmaat, Polansky, Ban & Boesch, ; Shettleworth, ; Sulikowski & Burke, ). Nor are we proposing that spiders, like people and perhaps some other animals, engage in elaborate “time travel” based on having episodic projections into the future, along with having a sense of self situated in the past and in the future (Osman, ; Raby & Clayton, ; Suddendorf & Corballis, ). Nonetheless, spiders sometimes behave in a way that makes at least a rudimentary capacity for planning difficult to deny.…”

Future-minded: the role of prospection in Agency, Control, and other goal-directed processes

“…In this special issue titled “Future-minded: the role of prospection in Agency, Control, and other goal-directed processes” there is a range of contributions that include empirical studies examining prospection and emotional memories in a sleep paradigm (Cunningham et al, 2014 ), the connection between prospective memory and emotions in decision-making (Worthy et al, 2014 ), and the connection between prospection in the context of deception (Knieps et al, 2014 ). There are also three review papers that focus on different aspects of prospection such as the broad conceptual issues around prospection (Osman, 2014b ), the current insights from work on prospective memory (Walter and Meier, 2014 ), and the links between prospective memory and imagination (Zheng et al, 2014 ).…”

“…Worthy et al ( 2014 ) treats prospection as “… the representation and consideration of the future value of decisions” and Zheng et al ( 2014 ) claim that “… it allows individuals to ensure their future interest and prevent future losses in advance” consider the role of values and outcomes as a key factor in prospection. Knieps et al ( 2014 ) proposes that prospection involves “… thinking about possible future states of the world” and Osman ( 2014b ) claims that it is “the process of representing and planning for possible future states of the world,” both electing for a much broader conceptualization of the label prospection.…”

“…Based on the contributions to this special issue, Osman ( 2014b ), Worthy et al ( 2014 ), Zheng et al ( 2014 ) treat prospection as a process that concerns future outcomes, whereas Cunningham et al ( 2014 ) and Knieps et al ( 2014 ) refer to prospection as if it is a type of representation of future states that in turn effects processes, and Walter and Meier's ( 2014 ) review strongly implies that prospection both coordinates various processes through intentions, and also influences our representational system so that we can generate imagined future states of the world. All of these different views compliment each other, but as yet, we are not quite at the stage where there is a single computational framework that underpins all of these different aspects of prospection.…”