Time spent imagining does not influence younger and older adults’ episodic simulation of helping behavior

Abstract

ABSTRACT Shared cognitive processes underlie our ability to remember the past (i.e., episodic memory) and imagine the future (i.e., episodic simulation) and age-related declines in episodic memory are also noted when simulating future scenarios. Given older adults’ reduced cognitive control and protracted memory retrieval time, we examined whether imposing time limits on episodic simulation of future helping scenarios affects younger and older adults’ willingness to help, phenomenological experience, and the type of details produced. Relative to a control task, episodic simulation increased younger and older participants’ willingness to help, scene vividness, and perspective-taking regardless of the time spent imagining future helping scenarios. Notably, time spent imagining influenced the number, but not proportion of internal details produced, suggesting that participants’ use of episodic-like information remained consistent regardless of the time they spent imagining. The present findings highlight the importance of collecting phenomenological experience when assessing episodic simulation abilities across the lifespan.