Poster #30 - Does Self-Projection Underlie Episodic Memory, Episodic Future Thinking, Theory of Mind, and Navigation in 4-Year-Olds?

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

Background. Do the seemingly different abilities of remembering a bike tour last summer, imagining to go ice-skating next Sunday, understanding the perspective of another person, and finding your way to the supermarket share a common underlying cognitive mechanism? Recently, Buckner and Carroll (2007) argued that episodic memory, episodic future thinking, theory of mind (ToM), and spatial navigation might all build on the same mental mechanism: self-projection, i.e. the ability to disengage from the immediate present and shift perspective to alternative temporal, mental or spatial situations.
Several developmental studies indeed show that all four abilities undergo profound developmental changes around the same age, namely around 4 years (Atance & O'Neill, 2001; Suddendorf, Nielsen, & Von Gehlen, 2011; Frith & Frith, 2005), and individual difference approaches have demonstrated developmental interrelations between some of the skills, like between episodic future thinking and ToM (Causey & Bjorklund, 2014), episodic memory and episodic future thinking (Bischof-Köhler, 2000; Perner, Kloo, & Rohwer, 2010), and ToM and episodic memory (Perner, Kloo, & Gornik, 2007). However, strong evidence for the self-projection account, namely that all four skills are interrelated when they emerge in early childhood, is still lacking.
Method. We tested 151 4-year-old children (age: M = 4.5 years, SD = 2.27; 89 female) on 12 different tasks investigating their episodic memory, episodic future thinking, ToM, and spatial navigation skills in a within-subjects design (for an overview of the administered tasks, see Figure 1). Furthermore, children were tested on reasoning and verbal skills, both serving as control variables.
Results. Common factor analysis (CFA) under maximum likelihood estimation (ML) was conducted to evaluate a model with the 12 tasks as indicators and self-projection as latent variable, while controlling for reasoning and verbal skills. The model showed an excellent fit to the data (Bentler's comparative fit index (CFI) = 1.0, Root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .000). Seven out the 12 variables loaded significantly on the latent factor (see Figure 1), Furthermore, both control variables contributed significantly to the latent factor. All variables together (including the control variables) explained 32% of the variance of the latent factor.
Discussion. In favor of the self-projection account, for each of the four abilities, i.e. episodic memory, episodic future thinking, theory of mind, and spatial navigation, there was at least one task which loaded significantly on the latent variable. The results thus provide first developmental evidence that all four abilities emerge in a related fashion at around the same age thereby supporting the assumption of a common underlying process as proposed in the self-projection account. Furthermore, the significant contribution of reasoning and verbal skills demonstrate the importance of controlling for general cognitive development when studying relationships between different (social-)cognitive skills.
At the conference, we will address in more detail the correlations among the tasks within the different abilities and also discuss possible reasons why certain tasks within the same ability were related to the latent variable whereas others were not.

Authors

• Anna-Sophie Immel, Donders Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen
  Presenting Author

• Marlene Meyer, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hinke Endedijk, Utrecht University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mareike Altgassen, Radboud University Nijmegen
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sabine Hunnius, Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, & Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  Non-Presenting Author