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A taxonomy of prospection: Introducing an organizational framework for future-oriented cognition
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Prospection—the ability to represent what might happen in the future—is a broad concept that has been used to characterize a wide variety of future-oriented cognitions, including affective forecasting, prospective memory, temporal discounting, episodic simulation, and autobiographical planning. In this article, we propose a taxonomy of prospection to initiate the important and necessary process of teasing apart the various forms of future thinking that constitute the landscape of prospective cognition. The organizational framework that we propose delineates episodic and semantic forms of four modes of future thinking: simulation, prediction, intention, and planning. We show how this framework can be used to draw attention to the ways in which various modes of future thinking interact with one another, generate new questions about prospective cognition, and illuminate our understanding of disorders of future thinking. We conclude by considering basic cognitive processes that give rise to prospective cognitions, cognitive operations and emotional/motivational states relevant to future-oriented cognition, and the possible role of procedural or motor systems in future-oriented behavior.
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“The key cognitive mechanisms are episodic and semantic simulations of future events [128].”
From Impact of Media-Induced Uncertainty on Mental Health: Narrative-Based Perspective. (2025) · cites this paper as [128]
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InfluentialMapping Time: How the Spatial Representation of Time Influences Intertemporal Choices
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“The mental representations can take two different forms based on memory and knowledge types: semantic and episodic (Szpunar, Spreng, and Schacter 2014).”
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BackgroundNot to worry: Episodic retrieval impacts emotion regulation in older adults.
Jing, H. G., Madore, K. P., & Schacter, D. L. (2019) · Emotion · doi:10.1037/emo0000581 · Cited by 18
“Existing research has highlighted the role of semantic memory in organizing various kinds of future thinking (Demblon & D’Argembeau, 2014; D’Argembeau & Demblon, 2012; Irish & Piguet, 2013; Klein, 2013; Szpunar et al., 2014).”
BackgroundSelf-citationCreative, internally-directed cognition is associated with reduced BOLD variability
Roberts, R. P., Grady, C. L., & Addis, D. R. (2020) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116758 · Cited by 17
“The simulation of future events involves the novel recombination of details retrieved from episodic memory to generate coherent scenarios (Addis et al., 2009; Addis and Schacter, 2012; Schacter and Addis, 2007; Szpunar et al., 2014).”
BackgroundConstruction and Validation of an Anticipatory Thinking Assessment
Geden, M., Smith, A., Campbell, J., Spain, R. D., Amos‐Binks, A., Mott, B., Feng, J., & Lester, J. C. (2019) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02749 · Cited by 16
The relationship between depressive symptoms and positive emotional anticipation of goal achievement
Anderson, R. J., McClure, J. H. C., Shevchenko, J., Howe, D. M., Riggs, K. J., & Dewhurst, S. A. (2023) · Journal of Experimental Psychopathology · doi:10.1177/20438087231164963 · Cited by 17
“Anticipation involves cognitive processes, whereby one generates and maintains cognitive representations of possible future experiences (Szpunar et al., 2014).”
BackgroundAffective forecasting and psychopathology: A scoping review
Rizeq, J. (2024) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2024.102392 · Cited by 18
Collective future thinking in Cultural Dynamics
Kashima, Y., Bain, P. G., Fernando, J. W., & Truong, A. (2025) · European Review of Social Psychology · doi:10.1080/10463283.2025.2458961 · Cited by 21
“Their choice of the term, event, is noteworthy because it reflects the research on episodic memory and pro-spection (e.g., K. K. Szpunar, 2010; K. K. Szpunar et al., 2014) in which their work was situated.”
Rafei, P., Rezapour, T., Bickel, W. K., & Ekhtiari, H. (2021) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.692645 · Cited by 17
Doyle, S., Pettit, N. C., Kim, S., To, C., & Lount, R. B. (2021) · Academy of Management Journal · doi:10.5465/amj.2019.1008 · Cited by 16
Predicting our own and others’ future preferences: The role of social distance
Bauckham, G., Lambert, R., Atance, C. M., Davidson, P. S. R., Taler, V., & Renoult, L. (2018) · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology · doi:10.1177/1747021818763573 · Cited by 16
Probabilistic Effect Prediction through Semantic Augmentation and Physical Simulation
Bauer, A. S., Schmaus, P., Stulp, F., & Leidner, D. S. (2020) · Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation/Proceedings · doi:10.1109/icra40945.2020.9197477 · Cited by 16
“It has been argued that simulation could play a similarly important role in robotics for predicting action effects [17], [18].”
BackgroundRobinson, M. D., & Sedikides, C. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108264822.031 · Cited by 18
The Five-Factor Model of Personality: Consensus and Controversy
McCrae, R. R. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108264822.013 · Cited by 20
Opening a conceptual space for metamemory experience
Neisser, J. U., Abreu, G., Drane, D. L., Pedersen, N. P., Parsons, T. D., & Cleary, A. M. (2022) · New Ideas in Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2022.100995 · Cited by 15
Distinct Mechanisms of Imagery Differentially Influence Speech Perception
Ma, O., & Tian, X. (2019) · eNeuro · doi:10.1523/eneuro.0261-19.2019 · Cited by 14
“One of the top-down processes that influence perception is prediction, a process of simulating the environment and estimating the sensory input from possible future events (Bar, 2007; Szpunar et al., 2014; Keller and Mrsic-Flogel, 2018).”
BackgroundThe dynamics of memory retrieval for internal mentation
Stawarczyk, D., & D’Argembeau, A. (2019) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-019-50439-y · Cited by 15
Simplicio, M. C. D., Lau‐Zhu, A., Meluken, I., Taylor, P., Kessing, L. V., Vinberg, M., Holmes, E. A., & Miskowiak, K. W. (2019) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00801 · Cited by 15
“, by anticipating future rewards to overcome present difficulties (80, 81).”
BackgroundConsidering purpose through the lens of prospection
Bronk, K. C., & Mitchell, C. (2021) · The Journal of Positive Psychology · doi:10.1080/17439760.2021.2016899 · Cited by 15
“One has to simulate future scenarios and predict outcomes while thinking about future goals and making plans to achieve those goals (Szpunar et al., 2014).”
BackgroundYoung, J. C., Calla, S., & Lécuyer, L. (2022) · Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment · doi:10.1016/j.agee.2022.108236 · Cited by 15
Towards a neurocomputational account of social controllability: From models to mental health
Na, S., Rhoads, S. A., Yu, A. N. C., Fiore, V. G., & Gu, X. (2023) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105139 · Cited by 17
Metadata
- Authors
- Szpunar, K. K., Spreng, R. N., & Schacter, D. L.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2014-11-21
- Volume
- 111
- Issue
- 52
- Pages
- 18414-18421
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4284580
- OpenAlex
- W1999520675
- Cited by
- 539
- References
- 103
- Citations by year
- 2026: 38 · 2025: 55 · 2024: 50 · 2023: 44 · 2022: 44 · 2021: 48 · 2020: 87 · 2019: 41 · 2018: 43 · 2017: 37 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 22
- FWCI
- 3.90
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (5r01ag008441-30)
- National Institute on Aging (R01-AG008441, AG 08441, R37AG008441)
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH 60941, R01MH060941)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychological and Temporal Perspectives Research
- Keywords
- prospection, future-oriented cognition, episodic simulation, prediction, intention, planning, affective forecasting, prospective memory, delay discounting, procedural systems
- MeSH terms
- Cognition, Humans, Thinking, Memory, Episodic
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