ArticleCognition2020
Is it time? Episodic imagining and the discounting of delayed and probabilistic rewards in young and older adults.
Article in Cognition, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Imagining the future can shape the present: A systematic review of the impact of episodic future thinking on substance use outcomes.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2024Pooled it
- Is episodic future thinking effective in mitigating the influence of time preference in time trade-off?The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2025Trial
- Using episodic future thinking (or not?) to optimize decision-making.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- Delay, Doubt and Dollars: Exploring Delay and Probability Discounting of Free and Paid HIV Vaccines among Sexual and Gender Minorities.AIDS and behavior · 2026Article
- Comparing intertemporal decision-making models: Predictions and applications in lifespan through subjective time perception.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2025Article
- Delay discounting predicts COVID-19 vaccine booster willingness.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2025Article
- The effect of time on delay discounting in younger and older adults.Australian journal of psychology · 2025Article
- Predictors of Change in Vaccination Decisions Among the Vaccine Hesitant: Examining the Roles of Age and Intolerance of Uncertainty.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2024Article
- Positive autobiographical memory recall does not influence temporal discounting: an internal meta-analysis of experimental studies.Journal Of Economic Psychology · 2024Article
- Assessing the relationship between delay discounting and decisions to engage in various protective behaviors during COVID-19.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2024Article
- Development and validation of Intertemporal Decision-Making Ability Scale for early adolescents.Australian journal of psychology · 2024Article
- Past and future episodic detail retrieval is reduced among clinically normal older adults at higher genetic risk for late-onset Alzheimer's disease.Neuropsychology · 2023Article
- Temporal Construal Effects Are Independent of Episodic Future Thought.Psychological science · 2023Article
- Short-sighted decision-making by those not vaccinated against COVID-19.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- On the evolution of a functional approach to memory.Learning & behavior · 2022Article
- The Influence of Episodic Future Thinking and Graphic Warning Labels on Delay Discounting and Cigarette Demand.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Does Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Damage Really Increase Impulsiveness? Delay and Probability Discounting in Patients with Focal Lesions.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2021Article
- The Time Is Ripe: Thinking about the Future Reduces Unhealthy Eating in Those with a Higher BMI.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Remembering and imagining specific, personal experiences can help shape our decisions. For example, cues to imagine future events can reduce delay discounting (i.e., increase the subjective value of future rewards). It is not known, however, whether such cues can also modulate other forms of reward discounting, such as probability discounting (i.e., the decrease in the subjective value of a possible reward as the odds against its occurrence increase). In addition, it is unclear whether there are age-related differences in the effects of cueing on either delay or probability discounting. Accordingly, young and older adult participants were administered delay and probability discounting tasks both with and without cues to imagine specific, personally meaningful events. As expected, cued episodic imagining decreased the discounting of delayed rewards. Notably, however, this effect was significantly less pronounced in older adults. In contrast to the effects of cueing on delay discounting, personally relevant event cues had little or no effect on the discounting of probabilistic rewards in either young or older adults; Bayesian analysis revealed compelling support for the null hypothesis that event cues do not modulate the subjective value of probabilistic rewards. In sum, imagining future events appears only to affect decisions involving delayed rewards. Although the cueing effect is smaller in older adults, nevertheless, it likely contributes to how adults of all ages evaluate delayed rewards and thus, it is, in fact, about time.
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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.