The results indicate that 4-year-olds were able to successfully accomplish two temporally ordered goals even with high working memory demands and a complex goal structure,whereas 3-year-olds were able to accomplish two goals only when the working memory demands were low and the goal structure did not involve additional demands from inferential reasoning and contingencies between the temporally ordered goals. Results are discussed in terms of the development of future thinking in
conjunction with working memory, inferential reasoning ability,and goal maintenance abilities.