ArticlePsychological research2026
An experience sampling study on spontaneous future thinking and prospective memory.
Article in Psychological research, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Prospective memory (PM) concerns the ability to fulfil intentions in the future. Research suggested that PM is associated with spontaneous cognition. However, the role of spontaneous thoughts during intention retention remains unclear. The present study aimed to investigate prospective bias in spontaneous thoughts specifically related to pending intentions, and whether these thoughts were associated with PM performance. Healthy young adults completed the Prospective Activity Fluency Task to generate daily PM tasks, and the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire to assess everyday PM failures. Spontaneous thoughts were collected by experience sampling, and categorized into pre-defined types, including PM-related, other future-oriented, and past-oriented thoughts. The results showed significant differences in the frequency of spontaneous thought types, with PM-related spontaneous thoughts occurring significantly more frequently than past-oriented ones. A higher proportion of PM-related spontaneous thoughts was significantly correlated with a fewer frequency of PM failures in everyday life. The current finding partially supports the hypothesis that there is a future-oriented natural reminding mechanism in the mind, constituting part of the prospective bias observed in spontaneous thoughts, which in turn is associated with better PM performance. These findings expand our understanding of the role of spontaneous cognition in PM.
Indexed as
Identifiers
42886342What OpenQuestion holds
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.