Work on future thinking suggests that people use what they know about the world (e.g., contents of memory) to make predictions about events to come, which reflects an adaptive use of memory. Less work, however, has examined whether the outcomes of these predictions—whether the outcome is consistent or inconsistent with predictions—influences memory. In two experiments, participants learned trait information about social targets and used that information to predict which of two behaviors social targets would be most likely to engage in: one behavior consistent with previously learned trait information about the target and the other behavior inconsistent. Participants then learned which behavior the social target actually performed (outcome) and then judged whether or not they expected that outcome (expectancy). Across both studies, prediction-consistent outcomes were better remembered than inconsistent ones, suggesting that participants relied on their existing representations of social targets when making memory judgments rather than incorporating inconsistent information into memory. Further, there was a memory advantage for prediction-inconsistent outcomes, but only when participants subjectively rated these outcomes as unexpected. Overall, these findings extend understanding of future thinking and suggest a reliable memory advantage for outcomes that are consistent with predictions.

关于未来思维的研究表明，人们使用他们对世界的了解（例如，记忆的内容）来预测即将发生的事件，这反映了记忆的一种自适应使用。然而，较少的工作检查了这些预测的结果（无论结果与预测是否一致）是否影响记忆。在两个实验中，参与者学习了有关社会目标的特征信息，并使用该信息预测了社会目标最有可能从事的两种行为中的一种：一种行为与先前学习的关于目标的特征信息一致，而另一种行为则不一致。然后，参与者了解了社交目标实际执行了哪种行为（结果），然后判断他们是否期望该结果（预期）。在两项研究中，与前后一致的结果相比，前后一致的结果要容易记住，这表明参与者在做出记忆判断时依赖于他们现有的社会目标表征，而不是将不一致的信息纳入记忆中。此外，对于预测不一致的结果，存在记忆优势，但前提是参与者在主观上认为这些结果是出乎意料的。总体而言，这些发现扩展了对未来思维的理解，并为与预测一致的结果提供了可靠的记忆优势。预测不一致的结果具有记忆优势，但前提是参与者在主观上认为这些结果是出乎意料的。总体而言，这些发现扩展了对未来思维的理解，并为与预测一致的结果提供了可靠的记忆优势。预测不一致的结果具有记忆优势，但前提是参与者在主观上认为这些结果是出乎意料的。总体而言，这些发现扩展了对未来思维的理解，并为与预测一致的结果提供了可靠的记忆优势。