Cognitive approaches to the study of episodic future thinking

Abstract

The concept of episodic future thinking--the ability to simulate events that may take place in the personal future--has given rise to an exponentially growing field of research that spans a variety of sub-disciplines within psychology and neuroscience. In this introduction to the special issue, we provide a brief historical overview of factors that have shaped research on the topic and highlight the need for additional behavioural work to uncover cognitive mechanisms that support episodic future thinking and differentiate it from other related modes of future-oriented cognition. We conclude by discussing the manner in which the various contributions to the special issue fill the gaps in our knowledge and make some of our own suggestions for future work.

Imagining possible selves across time: Characteristics of self-images and episodic thoughts

“…The emotional intensity of field perspectives versus observer perspectives was significant for both future conditions; IWB-near, t(396)=2. 18 78). This demonstrates that greater emotional intensity was found for field versus observer perspectives only for imagined events and not memories.…”

“…For example, memories have been demonstrated to typically have greater vividness than EFTs (e.g., Berntsen & Bohn, 2010;Cole & Berntsen, 2016), and the future is more often perceived as more emotionally positive (e.g., Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2013). As mentioned, one meaningful aspect of the self in MTT is visual perspective, as MTT functions in allowing events to be viewed from perspectives impossible to lived experience (Szpunar & Radvansky, 2016). Moreover, visual perspective is malleable in MTT (Libby, 2003): For example, people can experience events from both field and observer perspectives, and alter their perspective at will (Rice & Rubin, 2009).…”

La Intención Es Lo Que Cuenta. Una Revisión Sobre La Detección Del Engaño en Intenciones

“…Estas escenas imaginadas van muy ligadas a la memoria episódica, lo que favorece la viveza y calidad de los detalles recreados (Addis, Wong, & Schacter, 2008;Szpunar, 2010). Además, la incapacidad de recuperación de vivencias pasadas se asocia a la misma incapacidad para imaginarse a uno mismo en el futuro, y por lo tanto, imposibilita el generar imágenes (para una revisión reciente; Szpunar & Radvansky, 2016).…”

The History and Future of Human Prospection

“…Since the turn of the millennium, a thriving research industry has emerged on the back of this rich history, much of which I cover in more detail below. Some major reviews have recently been published (Schacter, Benoit, and Szpunar 2017;Szpunar and Radvansky 2015), as well as a number of books and edited volumes including the two under direct consideration here (Suddendorf 2013b;Clark 2015;Macleod 2017;Oettingen, Sevincer, and Gollwitzer 2018;Michaelian 2016b;Bar 2011). This brief historical sketch should suffice to indicate that the significance of prospection has long been recognized.…”