Over the past decade, psychologists have devoted considerable attention to episodic simulation-the ability to imagine specific hypothetical events. Perhaps one of the most consistent patterns of data to emerge from this literature is that positive simulations of the future are rated as more detailed than negative simulations of the future, a pattern of results that is commonly interpreted as evidence for a positivity bias in future thinking. In the present article, we demonstrate across two experiments that negative future events are consistently simulated in more detail than positive future events when frequency of prior thinking is taken into account as a possible confounding variable and when level of detail associated with simulated events is assessed using an objective scoring criterion. Our findings are interpreted in the context of the mobilization-minimization hypothesis of event cognition that suggests people are especially likely to devote cognitive resources to processing negative scenarios. (PsycINFO Database Record

The deleterious effects of insufficient sleep have been well-established in the literature and can lead to a wide range of adverse health outcomes. Some of the most replicated findings demonstrate significant declines in cognitive functions such as vigilance and executive attention, psychomotor and cognitive speed, and working memory. Consequently, these decrements often lead individuals who are in a fatigued state to engage in substandard performance on everyday tasks. In the interest of curtailing these effects, prior work has attempted to identify mechanisms that predict fatigue onset and develop techniques to mitigate its negative consequences. Nonetheless, these results are often confounded by variables such as an individual’s resistance to fatigue, sleep history, and unclear distinctions about whether certain performance decrements are present due to fatigue or due to other confounding factors. Similar areas of research have provided approaches to produce models for the prediction of cognitive performance decrements due to fatigue through the use of multi-modal recording and analysis of fatigue-related responses. Namely, gathering and combining response information from multiple sources (i.e., physiological and behavioral) at multiple timescales may provide a more comprehensive representation of what constitutes fatigue onset in the individual. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to discuss the relevant literature on the topic of fatigue-related performance effects with a special emphasis on a variety of physiological and behavioral response variables that have shown to be sensitive to changes in fatigue. Furthermore, an increasing reliance on sleep loss, meant to assist in meeting the demands of modern society, has led to an upsurge in the relevance of identifying dependable countermeasures for fatigued states. As such, we will also review methods for the mitigation of performance effects due to fatigue and discuss their usefulness in regulating these effects. In sum, this review aims to inspire future work that will create opportunities to detect fatigue and mitigate its effects prior to the onset of cognitive impairments.

This is the accepted manuscript (post-print version) of the article. Contentwise, the accepted manuscript version is identical to the final published version, but there may be differences in typography and layout. Notice: This is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Emotion. A definitive version was subsequently published in Emotion.