Episodic Memory Perspective Impacts Episodic Future Thinking

Presenter

Livia Trindade

Campus

UMass Boston

Sponsor

Tashauna Blankenship, Department of Psychology, UMass Boston

Schedule

Session 3, 1:30 PM - 2:15 PM [Schedule by Time][Poster Grid for Time/Location]

Location

Poster Board A71, Campus Center Auditorium, Row 4 (A61-A80) [Poster Location Map]

Abstract

Episodic future thinking (EFT) is the ability to self-project into the future to pre-experience events. Using EFT to plan for another has been overlooked, despite being a crucial social skill that needs to be developed in childhood. Planning for others may be more challenging as it requires children to use Theory of Mind. We tested 37 children (10 3-year-olds [M = 40, SD = 2.95] and 30 4-year-olds [M = 49 , SD = 3.67]) in a novel task requiring EFT from different perspectives. Children learned how to use a shape to make a box light up through experimenting with the box themselves (EM-self) or watching a dinosaur play with it (EM-other). Then, children chose a shape to light up a similar but novel box using EFT for themselves (EFT-self) or for the dinosaur (EFT-other). We hypothesized that when the conditions matched (i.e., EM-self and EFT-self, EM-other and EFT-other) children would perform better than when they did not. An ANOVA showed that the interaction between EM condition and EFT condition was significant (p=0.029). We calculated the mean of each condition, EM-self/EFT-self (M=0.818), EM-other/EFT-other (M=0.545), EM-self/EFT-other (M=0.333), and EM-other/EFT-self (M=0.333) and found that when the EM and EFT conditions matched, mean scores were higher, with EM-self/EFT-self being the highest. Data collection is ongoing and we hope to be able to investigate age differences between 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds alongside the effects of EM and EFT conditions.

Keywords

Episodic Future Thinking, Theory of Mind, Episodic Memory, Self-projection into the future, EFT development

Research Area

Clinical and Developmental Psychology

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