ReviewPsychological research2021
Spontaneous and deliberate future thinking: a dual process account.
Review in Psychological research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- The benefits of mind wandering on a naturalistic prospective memory task.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- An experience sampling study on spontaneous future thinking and prospective memory.Psychological research · 2026Article
- Environmental cues influence the unfolding and chaining of spontaneous simulations of future and past events.Memory & cognition · 2026Article
- Counterfactual relief.Memory & cognition · 2026Article
- Self-serving biases shape the relationship between future thinking and remembering of elections.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Effects of Childhood Trauma on Remembering the Past and Imagining the Future in Schizophrenia.PsyCh journal · 2025Article
- The influence of athletes' personality traits on competition performance: the multiple mediating effects of competitive anxiety, perfectionism, and stressors.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Recurrent involuntary memories and mind wandering are related but distinct.Psychological research · 2024Article
- A comprehensive guide to research protocols for collecting and coding involuntary past and future thoughts.MethodsX · 2024Article
- Individual differences in the frequency of voluntary & involuntary episodic memories, future thoughts, and counterfactual thoughts.Psychological research · 2023Article
- Prediction of delay discounting in intertemporal decisions by future thinking: Accounting for fluency, contents, and functions of future thoughts.Brain and behavior · 2022Article
- Predictors of obsessive-compulsive symptomology: mind wandering about the past and future.Psychological research · 2022Article
- Do Physical Activity, BMI, and Wellbeing Affect Logical Thinking?International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Episodic-semantic interactions in spontaneous thought.Memory & cognition · 2022Review
- Influence of Imagery Training on Adjusting the Pressure of Fin Swimmers, Improving Sports Performance and Stabilizing Psychological Quality.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- From retrospective to prospective memory research: a framework for investigating the deactivation of intentions.Cognitive processing · 2021Review
- Functions of spontaneous and voluntary future thinking: evidence from subjective ratings.Psychological research · 2021Article
- 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
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In this article, we address an apparent paradox in the literature on mental time travel and mind-wandering: How is it possible that future thinking is both constructive, yet often experienced as occurring spontaneously? We identify and describe two 'routes' whereby episodic future thoughts are brought to consciousness, with each of the 'routes' being associated with separable cognitive processes and functions. Voluntary future thinking relies on controlled, deliberate and slow cognitive processing. The other, termed involuntary or spontaneous future thinking, relies on automatic processes that allows 'fully-fledged' episodic future thoughts to freely come to mind, often triggered by internal or external cues. To unravel the paradox, we propose that the majority of spontaneous future thoughts are 'pre-made' (i.e., each spontaneous future thought is a re-iteration of a previously constructed future event), and therefore based on simple, well-understood, memory processes. We also propose that the pre-made hypothesis explains why spontaneous future thoughts occur rapidly, are similar to involuntary memories, and predominantly about upcoming tasks and goals. We also raise the possibility that spontaneous future thinking is the default mode of imagining the future. This dual process approach complements and extends standard theoretical approaches that emphasise constructive simulation, and outlines novel opportunities for researchers examining voluntary and spontaneous forms of future thinking.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.