Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Prospection is an important cognitive achievement, and isrelated to uniquely human abilities such as planning, delay ofgratification, and goal attainment. While prospection developsrapidly during early childhood, little is known about themechanisms that support its development. Here we exploredwhether encouraging children to talk about their extendedselves (self outside the present context) boosts theirprospective abilities. Preschoolers (N = 81) participated in a5-minute interaction with an adult in which they were askedto talk about events in the near future, distant future, nearpast, or present. Compared with children discussing theirpresent and distant future, children asked to discuss events intheir near future or near past displayed better planning andprospective memory. Additionally, those two conditions weremost effective in eliciting self-projection (use of personalpronouns). Results suggest that experience communicatingabout the close-in-time, extended self contributes tochildren’s future-oriented thinking.