title: Cognitive approaches to the study of episodic future thinking.
abstract: The concept of episodic future thinking--the ability to simulate events that may take place in the personal future--has given rise to an exponentially growing field of research that spans a variety of sub-disciplines within psychology and neuroscience. In this introduction to the special issue, we provide a brief historical overview of factors that have shaped research on the topic and highlight the need for additional behavioural work to uncover cognitive mechanisms that support episodic future thinking and differentiate it from other related modes of future-oriented cognition. We conclude by discussing the manner in which the various contributions to the special issue fill the gaps in our knowledge and make some of our own suggestions for future work.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Illinois at Chicago , Chicago , IL , USA.
authors.forename: Karl K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Szpunar
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , University of Notre Dame , Notre Dame , IN , USA.
authors.forename: Gabriel A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Radvansky
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Episodic future thinking; Episodic memory; Future-oriented cognition; Prospection