title: Episodic future thinking as a predictor of children's prospective memory.
abstract: The primary goal of this study was to investigate the relationship among retrospective memory, episodic future thinking, and event-based prospective memory performance in preschool, first-grade, and second-grade children. A total of 160 children took part in the experiment. The study included participants from four age groups: 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds, and 7-year-olds. Participants were administered a recognition memory task, a task to test the ability to pre-experience future events, and an event-based prospective memory task. Data were submitted to correlational analyses, analyses of variance (ANOVAs), and logistic regression analyses. Results showed that, overall, all of these abilities improve with age and are significantly correlated with one another. However, when partialling out age and retrospective memory, episodic future thinking and prospective memory performance remained correlated. Logistic regression further showed that age and episodic future thinking abilities were significant predictors of prospective memory performance independent of retrospective memory abilities.
authors: Department of Psychology, Second University of Naples, 81100 Caserta, Italy. Electronic address: giovanna.nigro@unina2.it.
authors: Giovanna
authors: G
authors: Nigro
authors: Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Suor Orsola Benincasa University, 80135 Naples, Italy.
authors: Maria A
authors: MA
authors: Brandimonte
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, 40127 Bologna, Italy.
authors: PierCarla
authors: P
authors: Cicogna
authors: Department of Psychology, Second University of Naples, 81100 Caserta, Italy.
authors: Marina
authors: M
authors: Cosenza
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D002666:Psychology, Child; D013850:Thinking
keywords: Development; Episodic future thinking; Episodic memory; Mental time travel; Prospective memory; Retrospective memory