In young adults, valence not only alters the degree to which future events are imagined in rich episodic detail, but also how memorable these events are later on. For older adults, how valence influences episodic detail generation while imagining future events, or recalling these details at another time, remains unclear. We investigated the effect of valence on the specificity and memorability of episodic future thinking (EFT) in young and older adults. Among young and older adults, negative EFT was accompanied by less episodic detail generation relative to positive and neutral EFT. A similar reduction in episodic specificity for negative EFT was found two days later when participants recalled their previously imagined events. Notably, while older adults generated less episodically specific future thoughts relative to young adults, age did not influence the effect of valence on episodic detail generation at imagination or recollection.

在年轻人中，效价不仅改变了未来事件在丰富的情节细节中被想象的程度，而且改变了这些事件在以后的难忘程度。对于老年人来说，在想象未来事件或在其他时间回忆这些细节时，效价如何影响情节细节的生成仍不清楚。我们调查了效价对年轻人和老年人情景未来思维 (EFT) 的特异性和可记忆性的影响。在年轻人和老年人中，相对于积极和中性 EFT，消极 EFT 伴随着较少的情节细节生成。两天后，当参与者回忆起他们之前想象的事件时，发现对负 EFT 的情节特异性类似的降低。值得注意的是，虽然与年轻人相比，老年人产生的未来想法较少，