Poster #7 - A new test of “self-directed” episodic future thinking in children

• In Event: Poster Session 05

Abstract

Introduction: It is argued that episodic future thinking (EFT; i.e., the capacity to mentally pre-experience a future event) emerges by age 4. However, this evidence has come from tasks that prompt children to engage in future-directed behaviour. For example, children are presented with a problem (e.g., locked box) for which they have no solution (i.e., a key); after a delay in another location, children are told they will return to the original location and asked which item from a set (e.g., key, ruler, eraser) they should bring with them. Although selecting the correct item (i.e., key) is taken as a reflection of EFT, it tells us little about how children use their EFT in a more independent (or “self-directed”) manner to guide their behaviour. To shed light on this issue, we developed a new task to assess children’s unprompted or “spontaneous” future-directed actions. Procedure: We tested 37 children (projected n = 120) between 4 and 9 years of age remotely through a Zoom call. Using a Google slides presentation, children were shown three crying babies and were told they would receive a special surprise if they could make all of the babies stop crying. To stop each baby’s crying, the child needed to perform a specific action (i.e., clapping, saying “shh”, and waving a spoon). Critical to our design, children did not have a spoon readily available and were therefore unable to obtain the “surprise.” Children next experienced a 10-minute “delay” period during which they listened to two stories. Following this, children were told they would meet the babies again and were given one minute of “free time” while the experimenter pretended to take a phone call. Of interest was whether children used this opportunity to spontaneously (i.e., with no prompting from the experimenter) retrieve a spoon thus exhibiting self-directed EFT. Children who did not spontaneously retrieve the spoon were administered a series of increasingly specific questions (e.g., “What would be a good thing to bring for the crying babies?”) to determine how the level of prompting required to solve the task (i.e., retrieve/mention a spoon) varied by age. To explore whether self-directed EFT is associated with executive processes, children were also given the Forward Digit Span, Backward Digit Span, and Category Fluency tasks. Results: Only six children (16.2%) spontaneously retrieved the spoon, and level of prompting required to pass the task was not significantly related to age in months, r(35) = -.041, p = .811. Level of prompting had a significant positive correlation to Forward Digit Span, r(34) = .334, p = .046 and Backward Digit Span, r(34) = .378, p = .023, when controlling for age in months. Conclusion: As adults, we often use our EFT to self-direct or “auto-cue” our future-directed actions. Our study is the first to identify and measure children’s transition from prompted future-directed behaviour to independent or “self-directed” EFT. This overlooked milestone in cognitive development is critical to children’s growing autonomy and independence.

Authors

• Gladys Ayson, University of Ottawa
  Presenting Author

• Jane Archibald

• Zoë Brown

• Cristina Atance, University of Ottawa