Children aged 4- to 6 years were requested to name pictures of animals for the benefit of a watching hand puppet and to make a special response to a predetermined picture (refraining from naming it and hiding it from view). Children identified four stacks of ten pictures in total, each arranged such that the prospective memory (PM) target appeared either last (no interruption condition) or in the middle position (interruption condition). Children also undertook assessments of verbal ability, cognitive inhibition, memory span, and perspective shifting as gauged by false-belief and false-sign tests. Results showed a unique contribution of inhibitory skills to children's PM accuracy in the interruption condition and to their success at withholding naming. In contrast, outcomes of the false-belief tests were a robust predictor of PM performance in both conditions and for both dependent measures. We consider the findings in light of recent evidence implicating the theory-of-mind system in episodic future simulation.
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