ArticlePsychological research2019
Absence of age effects on spontaneous past and future thinking in daily life.
Article in Psychological research, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The Relative Accuracy of Different Methods for Measuring Mind Wandering Subtypes: A Systematic Review.Brain and behavior · 2025Pooled it
- Ecological momentary assessment of mind-wandering: meta-analysis and systematic review.Scientific reports · 2023Pooled it
- An experience sampling study on spontaneous future thinking and prospective memory.Psychological research · 2026Article
- Morality across time: Evidence for a moral asymmetry between episodic future thinking and autobiographical memory.Memory & cognition · 2026Article
- Spontaneous Goal-Related Cognition Predicts Well-Being and Real-World Goal Attainment Across Adulthood in a Think-Aloud Study.Research square · 2026Article
- Environmental cues influence the unfolding and chaining of spontaneous simulations of future and past events.Memory & cognition · 2026Article
- Enhanced episodic specificity and socioemotional content in older adults' everyday autobiographical thoughts.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Cross-sectional and longitudinal changes in mind-wandering in older adulthood.Psychology and aging · 2024Article
- Comparing music- and food-evoked autobiographical memories in young and older adults: A diary study.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2023Article
- Investigating the relationship between periodontitis and specific memory processes in the search for cognitive markers of Alzheimer's disease risk.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Prospective memories in the wild: Predicting memory for intentions in natural environments.Memory & cognition · 2023Article
- Where Is My Mind…? The Link between Mind Wandering and Prospective Memory.Brain sciences · 2022Article
- Predictors of obsessive-compulsive symptomology: mind wandering about the past and future.Psychological research · 2022Article
- Deficits in spontaneous and stimulus-dependent retrieval as an early sign of abnormal aging.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Cognitive and non-cognitive variables influencing age-related effect of mind wandering across the adult life span.European journal of ageing · 2022Article
- Episodic-semantic interactions in spontaneous thought.Memory & cognition · 2022Review
- Functions of spontaneous and voluntary future thinking: evidence from subjective ratings.Psychological research · 2021Article
- Spontaneous and deliberate future thinking: a dual process account.Psychological research · 2021Review
- Looking on the Bright Side: Aging and the Impact of Emotional Future Simulation on Subsequent Memory.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2020Article
- The effects of aging and an episodic specificity induction on spontaneous task-unrelated thought.PloS one · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Previous research on voluntary mental time travel (i.e., deliberately thinking about the past or future) has resulted in negative age effects. In contrast, studies on spontaneous past thoughts (i.e., involuntary autobiographical memories) have reported small or no age effects. The aim of the present research was to investigate the effects of age on the nature and frequency of spontaneous future thoughts in everyday life. In two studies, we examined whether older adults reported spontaneous future thoughts as often as younger adults, and whether these thoughts were predominantly goal-oriented and less dependent on incidental cues than thoughts about the past. In Study 1, young and old participants kept a diary of spontaneous thoughts of upcoming prospective memory tasks and involuntary autobiographical memories for 2 weeks. In Study 2, a 1-day experience sampling method was used to investigate spontaneous and deliberate task-unrelated future and past thoughts, by having young and old participants complete a questionnaire in response to 30 random signals. In both studies, no age effects were found in the frequency of spontaneous future thoughts, which were reported as frequently as thoughts about the past (Study 2) and referred predominantly to upcoming tasks and goals rather than future events or hypothetical events (Study 2). Results concerning the triggers of reported thoughts provide initial support for the idea that representations of future thoughts may be more activated than memories of past events. Taken together, these results have important implications for research on cognitive ageing, mind-wandering, prospective memory and involuntary autobiographical memories.
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Registered trials
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