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Episodic future thinking in children compared to adolescents

Episodic future thinking in children compared to adolescents Episodic thinking involves the ability to re-create past and to construct future personal events, which contain event-specific (episodic) and general (semantic) details. The richness of episodic thought for past events improves as children move into adolescence. The current study aims to examine changes in episodic future thinking and to establish the cognitive underpinning of these changes. Typically developing children (n = 14) and adolescents (n = 15) were tested using an adapted version of the Child Autobiographical Interview (CAI) that required generation of past and future personally relevant events. Relational memory and executive skills were also examined. Significant developmental gains were found in richness of events recall across temporal directions (past and future) and across different types of details (episodic and semantic). Developmental gains in richness of past events were also shown to correspond to developmental gains in generation of future events. Moreover, developmental changes in relational memory and (to a lesser extent) executive functions were found to relate to increases in the amount of episodic (but not semantic) details provided. Our study highlighted the similarities between past and future episodic thinking in typically developing children and adolescents. It also raises a possibility that children with developmental and neurological disorders with impaired relational memory and/or executive skills may be at risk of difficulties with episodic thinking. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Child Neuropsychology Taylor & Francis

Episodic future thinking in children compared to adolescents

Gott, Chloe; Lah, Suncica
Child Neuropsychology , Volume 20 (5): 16 – Sep 3, 2014
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References (69)

Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2013 Taylor & Francis
ISSN
1744-4136
eISSN
0929-7049
DOI
10.1080/09297049.2013.840362
pmid
24070495
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Episodic thinking involves the ability to re-create past and to construct future personal events, which contain event-specific (episodic) and general (semantic) details. The richness of episodic thought for past events improves as children move into adolescence. The current study aims to examine changes in episodic future thinking and to establish the cognitive underpinning of these changes. Typically developing children (n = 14) and adolescents (n = 15) were tested using an adapted version of the Child Autobiographical Interview (CAI) that required generation of past and future personally relevant events. Relational memory and executive skills were also examined. Significant developmental gains were found in richness of events recall across temporal directions (past and future) and across different types of details (episodic and semantic). Developmental gains in richness of past events were also shown to correspond to developmental gains in generation of future events. Moreover, developmental changes in relational memory and (to a lesser extent) executive functions were found to relate to increases in the amount of episodic (but not semantic) details provided. Our study highlighted the similarities between past and future episodic thinking in typically developing children and adolescents. It also raises a possibility that children with developmental and neurological disorders with impaired relational memory and/or executive skills may be at risk of difficulties with episodic thinking.

Journal

Child Neuropsychology – Taylor & Francis

Published: Sep 3, 2014

Keywords: Episodic; Future; Semantic; Relational learning; Children; Adolescents

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