People frequently consider the alternatives of the events that can happen in the future and of the events that already happened in the past in everyday life. The current study investigates the effects of engaging in imagination of hypothetical future (Experiment 1) and past (Experiment 2) events on memory and metamemory. We demonstrate, across two experiments, that imagination of positive future and positive past events yielded greater memory performance than negative events, as well as receiving higher vividness and plausibility ratings. In addition, simulation of a negative event occurring positively in the future or having occurred positively in the past produced higher memory performance, compared to simulation of a positive event occurring / having occurred negatively. However, participants' predictions for their subsequent memory performance did not reflect their increased tendency to remember positive or could-be / could-have-been positive events neither for future nor past reconstructions. These findings are interpreted in the framework of positivity bias which suggests that people have a tendency towards positivity when simulating future events; and we extend this positivity bias to reconstructions of the hypothetical past events as well.

Contact tracing is a key strategy for slowing the spread of infectious diseases. We evaluated the effect of a directed recall manipulation on the quantity of names produced during contact tracing interviews. Participants reported close contacts over the last 4 days prior to the experiment. We found that people report more contacts when they are guided in directed recall (i.e., backward or forward in time) than when given the freedom to recall as they please. A second recall opportunity led to the retrieval of additional contacts, regardless of recall direction. Finally, the direction of recall instructions did not affect the overall number of names retrieved but did result in different patterns of retrieval density with respect to time. Backward recall elicited more recall of recent contacts, making it appropriate for public health officials engaging in forward-tracing protocols. Forward recall elicited more retrieval of distant contacts, making it appropriate for backward-tracing protocols.