Episodic thought in development: On the relation between memory and future thinking

Extensive research from cognitive neuroscience has shown that episodic memory and future thinking are related processes and has given rise to theories attempting to explain these similarities, but developmental research has only minimally been considered. We argue that developmental research is fundamental to understanding the association between episodic memory and future thinking and that existing neurocognitive theories do not fully accommodate developmental findings. We review evidence from studies investigating children’s episodic memory, future thinking, and comparing across the two, as well as studies on the developing brain, and research with patients with brain lesions and individuals with autism spectrum disorder. These data provide an emerging but incomplete picture of the relation between memory and future thinking, and therefore we present a framework that deconstructs episodic thought into its separate components – who an episode is about, what happens in it, and when and where it occurs. We argue that episodic memory and future thinking place different demands on these subcomponents but are bound together by a shared episodic simulator that plays episodes to conscious awareness. We then provide a roadmap for future research that will clarify how memory and future thinking are related in development.