Table 2.
Differentiating processes, characteristics, paradigms and functions of voluntary and spontaneous future thinking
| Voluntary future thinking | Spontaneous future thinking | |
|---|---|---|
| (a) Cognitive processes | Intentional/deliberate | Unintended/automatic |
| Slow, effortful | Fast, effortless | |
| Self-directed | Undirected | |
| (b) Characteristics of future thoughts | Semantic and episodic | Largely episodic |
| Emotional and non-emotional in valence and emotional impact | Largely emotional in valence and impact | |
| (c) Popular paradigms | Cue-word method | Vigilance task |
| (d) Possible functions | Simulating novel events/scenarios | Orienting to one’s existing current concerns, upcoming tasks and goals |
| Creating and developing plans | Aiding the completion of pending goals and prospective memory tasks |
(b) Evidence for differences in characteristics is derived from Berntsen and Jacobsen (2008), Finnbogadóttir and Berntsen (2011), Cole et al. (2016)
(c) evidence for differences in methods is derived from Addis et al. (2008), Cole et al. (2016), Hassabis et al. (2007) (see also Schacter 2012, for a review)
(d) Indirect evidence for differences in functions comes from: Anderson (2012), who showed that voluntary future thinking can integrate different sources of information in a flexible way, and Spreng et al. (2010) who demonstrated how this function could be harnessed when engaging in autobiographical planning. Evidence for creating novel scenarios or plans voluntarily, is derived from over a decade of research using instructions emphasising novelty of the to-be-constructed events in the cue word paradigm (e.g., Addis et al. 2008). Results from this research contrast the findings on spontaneous future thinking by Cole et al. (2016) who found higher ratings of novelty for voluntary compared with spontaneous future thinking (for similar points, see Jeunehomme and D’Argembeau 2016). In terms of the functions of spontaneous future thought, we draw upon research showing a link between spontaneous future thought sand current concerns (e.g., Cole and Berntsen 2016) and prospective memory (e.g., Kvavilashvili and Fisher 2007; Szarras and Niedźwieńska 2011; for a review, see Kvavilashvili and Rummel 2019)