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Episodic future thinking: the role of working memory and inhibition on age-related differences

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Abstract

The ability to remember past events and imagine future events (episodic future thinking—EFT) has been shown to decline with aging. However, only few studies have analyzed the cognitive mechanisms involved in EFT in both young and older adults. The present study examined the role of working memory and inhibition on age-related differences between young and older adults in EFT, in response to short sentences reflecting common events, some of which were repeated in both conditions (past and future). Thirty-seven young and 36 older adults completed an adapted version of the autobiographical interview, in which sentences were presented. Results showed that processing resources explained a significant part of the variance in the amount of details; in particular, inhibition explained the amount of external details produced in the future condition. In addition, using sentences, the older group did not differ from the young adults in terms of the proportion of internal details recalled in the past condition, whereas they produced a lower proportion of internal details in the future condition. The effect of using structured material was reinforced by repeating some sentences in the past. Further, only older adults rated the remembered episodes as more emotionally salient and relevant than the imagined ones. Age-related differences between young and older adults in EFT appear to depend on the type of material used, on basic mechanisms of cognition, and are characterized by both quantitative and qualitative differences.

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Notes

  1. The events were considered to be very common by three independent judges.

  2. Although all participants were asked to indicate the period in their life when the event occurred or was expected to occur, data recording was available for a limited number of participants (30 young adults; 13 older adults). The tendency emerging from available data was explored with a 2 (young vs. old) by 2 (past vs. future) ANOVA on the number of years reported for past events and future events. Results showed a significant Age x Condition interaction, F(1,41) = 7.44, p < 0.01 η 2 p  = 0.15: older adults (M 14.71, SD 8.42) rated their past events as having occurred a longer time before than young adults (M 6.38, SD 3.21). Moreover, only older adults reported events in the past as being more remote from the present than was the case for events imagined in the future (p = 0.004). No age-related differences were found for the future condition (young adults: M 6.84, SD 7.23; older adults: M 6.26, SD 8.28). Age-related differences in the time elapsing between the event and the present were only seen for past events.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Irene Grasso for helping in data processing. This work was supported by a grant from the Italian Ministry of Research and Education (Progetto PRIN: 2010P8LRP7_003).

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None.

Human and Animal Rights

The study was conducted according to standards derived from the Declaration of Helsinki.

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A written informed consent was obtained from every patient.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131, Padua, Italy

    Michela Zavagnin, Rossana De Beni, Erika Borella & Barbara Carretti

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  1. Michela Zavagnin
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  2. Rossana De Beni
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  3. Erika Borella
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  4. Barbara Carretti
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Correspondence to Michela Zavagnin, Erika Borella or Barbara Carretti.

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Zavagnin, M., De Beni, R., Borella, E. et al. Episodic future thinking: the role of working memory and inhibition on age-related differences. Aging Clin Exp Res 28, 109–119 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-015-0368-6

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