PSYC2030 WEEK 8

EPISODIC MEMORY

Concerns personal experiences in the past (yesterday, last year, childhood)

EPISODIC FORESIGHT

• The capacity to think about and project ourselves into the future 

• Ex. What might happen tomorrow, what will not happen tomorrow, what can be done now so something might happen later. 

WHEN CAN WE TRAVEL TO PAST AND FUTURE (VERBALLY)

4- and 5-year-olds: 

• Can accurately answer what happened yesterday and what will you do/not do tomorrow 

3 year olds: 

• Are correct in answering with events that have happened in the past  

• But incorrect in accurately answering what happened yesterday and what will you do/not do tomorrow 

• Have difficulty constraining their memory to just yesterday and tomorrow 

WHEN CAN WE TRAVEL TO PAST AND FUTURE (VERBAL + HYPOTHETICAL)

3 and 4 year olds passed: 

• Could answer the question about which colour toy that played with yesterday and which one they would play with tomorrow 

4-year-olds passed, but not 3 year olds: 

• 4 year olds could answer the hypothetical scenario questions about what colour toy they played with yesterday and which one they would play with tomorrow  

• 3 year olds could not  

Discussion: 

• When in the experimental situation they merely had to remember the colour of the toy they played with yesterday  

• For the hypothetical situation they had to simulate a past and also a future, as well as remembering the colours which is more difficult.  

USING EPISODIC MEMORY FOR THE FUTURE

Suddendorf et al. (2011) 

• Children had to think ahead to a future room and choose something that would help them there 

• 4 year olds, but not 3 year olds, selected and retained the correct key 

• Selecting the correct key illustrates using remembered information to prepare for a future problem. 

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

A future event cannot be known with 100% certainty, so imagining a future event involves possibility.  

• a forked-tube task showed that some 3 year olds and many 4 year olds can prepare for two mutually exclusive future possibilities 

• This means they understood there was more than one possible future outcome 

• 3 year old could recognise a strategy that prepares for future possibilities but they could not prepare for these possibilities independently  

PROBABILITIES OF FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

• The ask compared future possibilities with different probabilities, including 0, 50 and 100% outcomes.  

• Younger children could distinguish between guaranteed vs impossible contrasts (0 vs 100%), while distinguishing between two possible outcomes with different probabilities was harder (0 vs 50%, 50 vs 100%). 

• From around 5 years, children could distinguish between different outcomes with different probabilities 

SUMMARY OF FUTURE THINKING

• 3–4 years: recall past events and imagine future events. 

• ~4 years: devise a solution to a future problem using memory. 

• ~4 years: prepare for multiple future possibilities and distinguish impossible, possible and guaranteed outcomes. 

• ~5 years: prepare for two possible futures that differ in probability. 

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING

Counterfactual thinking is thinking about or imagining alternative outcomes for an event or behaviour that has already happened. It involves mentally 'undoing' a past event and considering an alternative timeline that did not actually occur.  

Counterfactual past: 

• What could I have done differently? 

Counterfactual future: 

• How would the present differ if the past had been different? 

Why it matters? 

• It has implications for decision making, adapting future behaviour and concepts such as fault and responsibility. 

 

REASONING ABOUT COUNTERFACTUAL PAST

Harris, German & Mills (1996) 

• Children were asked what would have happened if a character had taken off dirty shoes before walking across a clean floor 

• Children from around 3 years could answer correctly (the floor would stay clean) 

McCormack et al. (2018) 

• Angry birds long vs short route vs blocked route 

• 4 and 5 year olds focused on the immediate intervention 

• 6 year olds understood the downstream consequences that would still occur  

COUNTERFACTUAL EMOTIONS

Counterfactual emotions depend on comparing what actually happened with what could have happened. 

COUNTER FACTUAL EMOTIONS EXPERIMENT

1. Child chooses between two boxes with prizes 

2. Child rates emotion about the chosen prize 

3. The unchosen box is revealed 

4. Child now rates how they felt about the chosen box  

 

• Feeling worse after discovering a better alternative = regret 

• Feeling better after discovering a worse alternative = relief 

• Regret occurred around 5 years and relief at around 7 years  

 

Classic tasks often use gain-only contexts, whereas, in everyday life, relief almost always follows an almost-bad outcome rather than simply receiving a smaller reward.  

REGRET AND RELIEF IN DEVELOPMENTAL CONTEXT

• This task involved losing or gaining a reward depending on the chosen box  

• Children seemed to experience regret and relief from around 6 years  

JUDGING OTHERS REGRET AND RELIEF

Weisberg & Beck (2010) 

• The task required children to infer an emotional response from counterfactual information about the non-chosen box 

• 5 – 7 year olds could not identify that a character would feel sadder in the regret condition, or happier in the relief condition 

Jones et al. (2025) 

• Children inferred the contents of a non-chosen box from another person's facial expression 

• Older children were better at identifying counterfactual information from facial expressions 

• Regret was easier to identify than relief  

COUNTERFACTUAL JUDGEMENTS ABOUT OTHERS CHOICES

The key question when judging another person's behaviour is where the person had another choice available. 

Gautem et al. (2023) 

• Children judged how nice or mean characters were after characters bought gifts for someone else 

• From 6 years, children considered what the character could have chosen when judging how nice/mean the action was 

Cross-cultural differences: 

• US and China participants made judgements based on whether the character had a choice  

• India participants did not show the same choice-based pattern 

SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF COUNTERFACTUAL JUDGEMENTS

No choice: 

• Forgiveness 

• Reconciliation 

Choice: 

• Anger 

• Apology 

• Remorse 

• compensation 

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING SUMMARY

• Counterfactual reasoning = more reliable around 6 years old  

• Counterfactual emotions = regret and relief emerge during early school years, with the exact pattern depending on outcome context 

• Other's counterfactual emotion = increasingly able to infer regret and relief from around 6 years old 

• Counterfactual social judgements = from around 6 years children increasingly consider what another person could have chosen  

 

WHY DOES COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING DEVELOP LATER?

Counterfactual thinking places heavier demands on executive functioning than straightforward future simulation. 

• Working memory = keep the actual past and the alternative past in mind 

• Inhibitory control = represent what actually happened, inhibit it, then generate an alternative 

• Cognitive flexibility = switch between actual and counterfactual past