Fig. 1.

The fMRI intertemporal decision task experiment. Each trial starts with an instruction: either a rest period (control condition) or an imagination period (episodic condition), followed by a choice option–viewing period, a jitter period (1–4 seconds), and reappearance of the choice options: where subjects are then asked to press a button to choose their option as soon as possible, and a choice feedback displayed at the end of each trial. During the control condition, subjects are asked to make the intertemporal choice only; during the episodic condition, participants are asked to imagine their personal future events according to the cue word and to elaborate the imagination as detailed as possible, additional to the choice process. Abbreviation: fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging.