Episodic memory helps us remember past events and supports flexible thinking. By forming connections between multiple memories, we are able to infer new knowledge, come up with creative ideas, and imagine possible future events. Our research examines how developmental differences in how events are encoded, organized, and retrieved in memory impacts these other cognitive abilities. Some specific questions include:

• How do children develop the ability to encode and retrieve relations between events in memory? 

• Are there developmental differences in how relations between remembered events are represented at the neural level? 

• How does the encoding and retrieval context impact the ease with which memories of related events are accessed across development?

Our episodic memories fuel forms of flexible thinking. Imagining future events involves recombining remembered content, generating creative ideas benefits from retrieving multiple events, and new knowledge can be inferred from linking remembered events. Our research examines how children engage in these abilities, focusing on the neurocognitive mechanisms that support their development. We're particularly interested in how top-down control processes interact with episodic memory to support this development. Some specific questions include:

• What is the developmental trajectory of future event imagination, creative idea generation, and inferential reasoning? 

• What is the functional relation between these abilities and episodic memory across development? 

• What is the role of top-down control processes—such as attention, working memory, and executive control—in the development of these abilities?

• How do developmental changes in the structure and function of the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and posterior parietal cortex support improvements in these abilities?

Research suggests individuals imagine possible future events by retrieving and recombining content from multiple memories to construct events that might possibly happen to us. If this is true, then the future events children and adults imagine may be constrained by what they’ve already experienced. There is also evidence that what individuals have experienced—such as environmental enrichment and adversity—may impact neural regions critical for future event imagination. Our research examines whether past experiences influence the type of future events individuals imagine as well as the neural mechanisms that support this ability. Some questions include:

• To what extent are imagined future events constrained by what one has already experienced?

• To what extent are memories of indirect experiences (e.g., events depicted in books or shared stories) incorporated into imagined future events across development?

• Do environmental factors such as familial and social relations impact the brain and subsequently future event imagination?

Forms of flexible cognition enable individuals to create novel content, like imagined future events and creative ideas. This novel content may help them adapt to changing environments and promote resilience. Our research examines the connection between flexible cognition and resilience. Some questions include:

• Do individual differences in forms of flexible cognition relate to adaptive behavior in challenging and uncertain situations across development?

• Do individual differences in forms of flexible cognition relate to psychological wellbeing in challenging and uncertain situations across development?

• Does experience with environmental instability impact the ease with which children engage in forms of flexible cognition?