Verbal Explanations and Item Choices as Joint Indices of Children’s Episodic Foresight

ABSTRACT The ability to project oneself forward in time and imagine a future episode, known as episodic foresight (EpF), is an important aspect of future thinking. EpF tasks often involve children choosing an item for a future episode, yet the degree to which future projection is required to succeed – versus memory or semantic associations – has been debated. Using existing data (N = 158 3-to 5-year-olds) that included two popular measures of EpF (the “Spoon” and Picture-book tasks), we systematically examined the extent to which an ostensibly future-directed action (i.e., selecting the item with future utility) mapped onto future orientation, episodicity, and self-projection (assessed through pronoun use) in children’s verbal explanations. For each task, we examined the effect of item choice (i.e., whether the item selected could be utilized in the future scenario or not) and age on children’s verbal explanations. Results showed that children’s explanations were more future-oriented and included more personal pronouns on the Picture-book task compared to the Spoon task but did not differ in episodicity or frequency of impersonal pronoun use. Further, age and item choice were significant predictors of future orientation and episodicity in children’s Picture-book task explanations (but results varied by trial). On the Spoon task, age and item choice significantly predicted children’s future orientation, while item choice significantly predicted episodicity. Our study highlights the correspondence between Canadian children’s item choices and explanations, while also showing that verbal explanations provide unique insight into the processes involved in EpF (e.g., future orientation, episodic processes, and self-projection).