Strength, limits and conclusion
As we reported in a recent experience-sampling studyIn conclusion, while the temporal orientation of MW has been repeatedly shown to be primarily focused on the future, whether in the context of planning actions to be performed or projecting into hypothetical situations, the latter being critical for the retrieval of PM intentions, MW seems to have a second functional purpose, in addition to planning future actions: it ensures the continuity in time of old memories (in our case, prospective intentions) by making them regularly go through a re-encoding process. MW is therefore intrinsically linked to the functionality of episodic and semantic memory, since it ensures continuity between the past and the future of the individual. What is currently still unclear, however, is whether instances of participants reporting thinking about the future deliberately coincide predominantly with the process of (deliberately) forming intentions to be carried out in the future, and whether reports of spontaneous future thoughts coincide with simply remembering previously formulated intentions of upcoming tasks or a hypothetical but very probable future, a bit like daily life in short. All these questions remain open, offering future studies the opportunity to address the issue of MW functionality in the specific case of PM.