Tracking the Development of Episodic Future Thinking During Early to Middle Childhood

人类经常考虑未来；我们想象每天的事件，比如我们今晚要做的饭，但也会想象更长期、更有意义的事件，例如，我们退休后计划做什么。这种断断续续的未来思考能力对儿童和成年人的决策、计划和自我控制都有重要的影响。目前的研究探索幼儿独立或“自发”地参与他们的片段性未来思维的能力，以产生适应未来的意图和行动(例如，获得一件以后会有用的物品)。在第一组实验中，我们将测试4到7岁的儿童在没有成人实验者的任何指示或他们所处环境的提示的情况下，能够在多大程度上获得对解决他们稍后将遇到的情况有用的物品。在下一个实验中，我们将要求父母跟踪他们的孩子在家庭环境中面向未来的谈话和行为，这样我们就可以更丰富地了解孩子未来思维的广度和灵活性，因为它在他们的日常生活中发挥作用。通过问卷调查，4至7岁儿童的父母将提供他们孩子面向未来的声明和行动的详细描述。这一方法将使我们能够评估未来思维的更多自发形式是否会随着年龄的增长而增加，以及儿童最容易讨论/准备的面向未来的需求和情况。我们的最终目标是研究儿童“预期自控力”的发展，这种自控力被定义为在预期未来的诱惑时采取策略提高自控力--例如，要求你的伴侣把饼干藏起来，这样你以后就不会被诱惑吃了。这种能力与当前的研究特别相关，因为它依赖于在精神上预测未来的能力，并在关键的情况下自发采取行动，以避免未来的诱惑。在几个实验中，我们将测试4至7岁儿童对某些环境(例如，储蓄、延迟满足)构成自我控制挑战的理解，并通过结构化观察，确定儿童是否自发地实施提前策略来解决这些问题。目前的研究涉及创造新的方法方法，从而产生新的知识，使科学界和公众(例如，父母)能够更好地理解适应性的、面向未来的思维的发展。研究这种能力很重要，尤其是因为未能未雨绸缪(例如，没有为退休储蓄充足)会给个人和社会带来重要后果。我们越好地理解面向未来的思维及其发展，我们就越有能力开发以认知科学为基础的方法，以提高其准确性和适应性。

Humans think about the future often; we imagine daily events such as the meal we will cook tonight, but also longer-term and more significant events, for example, what we plan to do once we retire. This capacity for episodic future thinking has important implications for decision-making, planning, and self-control in both children and adults. The current research explores young children's ability to independently, or "spontaneously", engage their episodic future thinking to generate adaptive future-directed intentions and actions (e.g., obtaining an item that will be useful later). In a first set of experiments, we will test the extent to which 4- to 7-year-old children can, without any instructions from an adult Experimenter, or cues from their environment, obtain an item that will be useful to address a situation that they will later encounter. In a next experiment, we will ask parents to track their child's future-oriented talk and behaviour in their home environment, so that we can gain a richer understanding of the breadth and flexibility of children's future thinking as it plays out in their day-to-day lives. Using questionnaires, parents of 4- to 7-year-olds will provide detailed descriptions of their child's future-oriented statements and actions. This methodology will allow us to assess whether more spontaneous forms of future thought increase with age, as well as the kinds of future-oriented needs and situations children are most apt to discuss/prepare for. Our final objective is to examine the development of children's "prospective self-control," defined as engaging in strategies to boost one's self-control when future temptation is anticipated - for example, asking your partner to hide the cookies so you will not be tempted to eat them later. This ability is particularly relevant to the current research because it relies on the capacity to mentally project into the future and, critically, spontaneously take action to avoid future temptation. In several experiments we will test 4- to 7-year-olds' understanding that certain contexts (e.g., saving, delaying gratification) pose self-control challenges and, using structured observations, we will determine whether children spontaneously implement advance strategies to address them. The current research involves the creation of novel methodological approaches leading to new knowledge that will allow the scientific community and the public (e.g., parents) to better understand the development of adaptive, future-oriented thinking. This capacity is important to study not least because failures to think ahead (e.g., not saving adequately for retirement) have important consequences to the individual and to society. The better we understand future-oriented thinking and its development, the better we are positioned to developing methods, grounded in the cognitive sciences, to improve its accuracy and adaptiveness.