title: Episodic elaboration: Investigating the structure of retrieved past events and imagined future events.
abstract: Five experiments investigated the cognitive processes involved in the elaboration of past and future events. A production listing procedure was used, in which participants listed details of each event in forwards chronological order, backwards chronological order, or free order. For both past and future events, forwards and free ordering conditions were reliably faster than backwards order. Production rates between past and future temporal directions did not differ in Experiments 1a, 1b, and 3. However, in Experiment 2, the elaboration of future events was faster than the elaboration of past events. This pattern can be explained by the findings of Experiment 4, in which production rates were faster for likely events than for unlikely events but only in the future condition. Overall, the findings suggest that the elaboration of future, but not past, events, is facilitated when constructed around current goals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Hull, UK. Electronic address: Rachel.Anderson@hull.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Rachel J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Lien
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Hull, UK.
authors.forename: Stephen A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Dewhurst
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D011939:Mental Recall; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Episodic memory; Event likelihood; Executive resources; Future simulation; Goals; Mental time travel