Posteriorment

Posteriorment is a recently proposed term in cognitive science and philosophy of time. It denotes a cognitive process or mental state in which a person considers or represents the posterior, or subsequent, outcomes that follow a given event. As a neologism, its usage is limited and not universally adopted.

Etymology: from Latin posterior (latter, following) combined with a nominalizing suffix -ment, indicating a state or process. The term is intended to contrast with foresight-oriented thinking, though in practice its boundaries overlap with existing concepts such as prospection and counterfactual reasoning.

Conceptual framework: Posteriorment emphasizes retrospective- and forward-looking evaluation of consequences conditioned on actions. It is used to analyze how people predict, value, or regret potential post-event states. Experimental tasks may ask participants to rate the desirability or probability of posterior outcomes given different choices.

Applications and reception: Because posteriorment is not widely recognized as a standard term, its theoretical utility lies in clarifying time-oriented cognitive processes and in speculative or interdisciplinary discussions. In fiction, it can describe a narrative focus on later developments.

See also: prospection, prospective memory, counterfactual thinking, mental time travel.