Episodic memory and future thinking
were hypothesized to improve between the ages of three and five. Four total tests were
administered: the narrative memory task, the narrative future thinking task, the non-
EPISODIC MEMORY AND FUTURE THINKING 25
narrative memory task and the non-narrative memory task (picture book trip-planning
task). The mean number of total episodic details was compared between the narrative
tasks (Table 1). The hypothesis was supported for three of the four tasks. Older children
outperformed younger children on the non-narrative future thinking task, the nonnarrative
memory task, and the narrative memory task. In the narrative future task,
however, older children did not differ from younger preschoolers in the number of
episodic details generated.
In a separate analysis, the total number of episodic details reported by each child
in the narrative memory and future thinking tasks was categorized into five episodic
subcategories. These subcategories corresponded to event, place, time, perceptual
details, and thought/emotion details. (See Figure 1 for means in each category for the
narrative memory and the narrative future thinking tasks.) In addition, external details
that did not pertain to the prompted memory or future episode were divided into
subcategories of external events, semantic details, repetitions, and other details. Due to
the low mean numbers of overall external details in both the narrative memory task and
the narrative future thinking task, and the non-significant differences between younger
and older groups (p values > .10), external details are not further discusse