The Brain’s Treatment Of Future Episodic Thinking

Someone has probably somewhere, somehow advised you to “live in the now and focus on the here and now”. You have probably even given such advice to someone else. However, it is quite normal for people to long for the good old days and imagine what the future will hold. This is known as episodic thinking.

What exactly is future episodic thinking? What is it good for? How does it develop? Is it related to certain psychopathologies in any way? Keep reading to find the answers to these questions and more!

What is future episodic thinking?

The term, coined by Cristina M. Atance and Daniela K. O’Neill, follows E. Tulving’s concept of episodic memory. This type of memory is related to the ability to remember and relive past events with autobiographical references.

Humans have the ability to travel mentally in time. This is because it is important for planning, decision making, opinion formation and goal achievement. This future episodic thinking allows us to predict a future event or situation.

This re-creation of mental images takes place in the planning phase of intentions and is an important part of such planning. People with intentions plan more seriously and in more detail. They also rely more on future episodic thinking.

Episodic Thinking: Related Concepts

Future memory is closely linked to future episodic thinking. This memory allows people to remember future plans. For example, go to a doctor’s appointment.

Three processes are involved in potential memory:

• Develop a plan.
• Remember the plan.
• Implement the plan.

As you can see, people use future episodic thinking to create an action plan.

Furthermore, Atance and O’Neill explain that there is an important relationship between the ability to mentally repeat past experiences (episodic memory) and the ability to imagine episodes one may experience in the future (future episodic thinking).

In addition, future episodic thinking is also closely linked to Tulving’s concept of self-awareness. It refers to man’s ability to notice our own existence through subjective time and to represent ourselves.

Self-awareness, the ability to be self-aware and to remember past autobiographical events are what allow people to use past representations and project them into the future. In other words, both abilities are necessary to initiate future episodic thinking and to develop action plans.

These abilities occur simultaneously and are associated with a common anatomical-functional basis. The frontal lobe and the temporal lobe are both related to episodic memory and planning.

How does future episodic thinking develop?

The skills developed from mentalization are essential for assigning one’s own mental state as well as others’. In turn, it allows us to mentally project into the future.

Neurotypical children begin to acquire an understanding of their own states of mind and others (mentalization) around the age of two. Furthermore, they continue to develop during the preschool years. In addition, skills around episodic memory and future episodic thinking emerge around four years.

It seems that children are beginning to understand the notion of the future around the age of three. However, it is not until they are 12 years old that they really understand the concept. Children begin to use words related to future events between the ages of two and three.

The ability to plan for the future develops between three and five years, even if it is only in the form of language and with reference to desires rather than realistic goals. Children begin to be able to make plans and decisions to achieve specific goals at the age of five.

The relationship to psychopathology

As we mentioned above, the skills related to mentalization (Theory of Mind) seem indispensable for future episodic thinking. For this reason, children with autism lack this, and therefore have difficulty planning and thinking ahead.

This may be related to the stereotypical repetitive behavior these children present, and also to the lack of flexibility. Suddendorf & Corballis suggested that these inflexible and stereotyped behaviors may reflect the inability of ASD children to position themselves in the future.

Studies that asked autistic children to describe events (past or future) showed a reduction in memory and episodic predictability compared to “neurotypical” children.

Furthermore, future episodic thinking has been linked to other disorders such as anxiety and depression, where it may be strongly related to anticipatory anxiety.

Finally, patients with generalized anxiety disorder are particularly characterized by nonspecific and negative future thinking. This makes any visualization of a future scenario unrealistic, abstract and negative. Thus, it creates great concern for any negative event they expect.