Brief inductions in episodic past or future thinking: effects on episodic detail and problem-solving

Episodic specificity inductions, involving brief training in recollecting episodic details, have been shown to improve subsequent performance on tasks involving remembering the past, imagining the future and problem solving. The current study examined if specificity inductions targeting self-referential past or future episodic thinking would have dissociable effects on generating past and future episodic detail and problem solving. Sixty-three participants were randomised to either a past self-referential or future self-referential episodic induction. All participants also completed a control task. Participants randomised to the self-referential future thinking induction generated more episodic details on past and future narrative tasks compared to a control task, whereas participants randomised to a self-referential past thinking induction showed similar performance to the control task. When examining within-group performance of participants randomised to the past or future induction, we found some evidence of dissociable effects of inductions on narrative generation tasks, but not on problem solving outcomes. Our findings suggest that self-referential inductions may be useful for increasing episodic specificity, but that the temporal distance and direction of the induction matters. We discuss our results in the context of the potential clinical utility of this approach for populations vulnerable to autobiographical memory disruption.