Two-year-olds use past experiences to accomplish novel goals

Memory-guided planning involves retrieving relevant memories and applying that information in service of a goal. Previous studies have shown substantial development in this ability between the ages of 3 and 4 years. We investigated the emergence of memory-guided planning by asking whether 2-year-olds could draw on episodic memories of past experiences to generate and execute plans. In Experiments 1 and 2, 2-year-olds successfully did so, and this ability developed significantly across the 3rd year. Furthermore, in Experiment 3 (n=19, d=.63), 2-year-olds successfully applied episodic memories to guide plans in a novel problem context, suggesting flexibility in this ability. Together, these results suggest that some form of memory-guided planning emerges in the 3rd year of life and may form the cognitive basis for episodic prospection later in development.