Evolutionary economics of mental time travel?

Boyer, Pascal

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2008.03.003

Cited by 371 publications

(362 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…As for the association between the feeling of emotions when imagining future pleasant events and apathy, this result is consistent with the idea that anticipating an episode of pleasure (e.g., the receipt of a reward) after having imagined its consumption or attainment with high emotional intensity might constitute an intrinsic source of motivation that positively influences GDB (Benoit et al, 2011). In sum, these data confirm and provide additional evidence that the capacity for episodic prospection may favor effective plans to achieve goals (Boyer, 2008). In addition, it is important to note that the links between impaired ability to imagine future pleasant events and apathy in this study were specific.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…Among other things, this ability to imagine possible future events increases behavioral flexibility and fosters more effective plans to achieve goals (Boyer, 2008), guides decisionmaking (Bechara and Damasio, 2005), allows the consideration of potential consequences prior to acting (Boyer, 2008), favours emotion regulation (Taylor et al, 1998), effectively attenuates temporal discounting (i.e., the propensity to devalue rewards with a delay before delivery; Benoit et al, 2011), and supports initiative, planning and GDB . These data suggest that mental simulation of future events may increase motivation and prompt people to concretely plan GDB (e.g., anticipating the positive or negative consequences of a future event may increase motivation to act).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Impaired ability to imagine future pleasant events is associated with apathy in schizophrenia

Raffard

Esposito

Boulenger

et al. 2013

Psychiatry Research

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a b s t r a c tRecent research has established that schizophrenia patients have difficulties envisioning the future. Although mental simulations have a clear adaptive value, little is known about the function of simulating future episodes, particularly emotional events. The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between apathy and future projection in schizophrenia. Twenty-five schizophrenia patients and 25 healthy controls were asked to imagine pleasant and unpleasant episodes that might happen to them in the future. Verbal descriptions were scored for specificity, and participants also completed the Memory Characteristics Questionnaire, which assesses phenomenal characteristics of imagined future events. Apathy was assessed with the Lille Apathy Rating Scale and the apathetic/social withdrawal item of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Results showed that schizophrenia patients' pleasant and unpleasant imagined future events were less specific and contained fewer phenomenal characteristics (e.g., amount of sensory details) than those of controls. In the schizophrenia group, difficulties imagining future pleasant events, and particularly poor self-referential information for future pleasant events, were specifically associated with apathy, even after controlling for working memory. These results suggest that episodic future thinking impairments, especially for future events of pleasure, may partly underlie the motivational deficits characteristic of schizophrenia.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impaired ability to imagine future pleasant events is associated with apathy in schizophrenia

Raffard

Esposito

Boulenger

et al. 2013

Psychiatry Research

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“…Boyer (2008) proposes that, from a functional perspective, we can account for the characteristic phenomenology of mental time travel in terms of its ability to counteract our natural tendency to time-discounting, which thus aids long-term planning. If, however, the imagination hypothesis discussed below is right, this explanation does not appear to be available, since the phenomenology will be shared not only by mental time travel into the future but also by at least some other forms of imaginative construction of possible experiences.…”

Section: Imaginationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is external memory memory? Biological memory and extended mind

Michaelian

2012

Consciousness and Cognition

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a b s t r a c t Clark and Chalmers (1998) claim that an external resource satisfying the following criteria counts as a memory: (1) the agent has constant access to the resource; (2) the information in the resource is directly available; (3) retrieved information is automatically endorsed; (4) information is stored as a consequence of past endorsement. Research on forgetting and metamemory shows that most of these criteria are not satisfied by biological memory, so they are inadequate. More psychologically realistic criteria generate a similar classification of standard putative external memories, but the criteria still do not capture the function of memory. An adequate account of memory function, compatible with its evolution and its roles in prospection and imagination, suggests that external memory performs a function not performed by biological memory systems. External memory is thus not memory. This has implications for: extended mind theorizing, ecological validity of memory research, the causal theory of memory.

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“…The capacity to simulate experiences that might occur in one's personal future is potentially adaptive because it allows individuals to mentally "try out" different versions of how an event might play out (Buckner & Carroll, 2007;Ingvar, 1979;Gilbert & Wilson, 2007;Suddendorf & Corballis, 2007;Tulving, 2005). During the past few years, research in my lab and others has documented striking similarities between remembering the past and imagining the future (for reviews, see Schacter, Addis, & Buckner, 2007, 2008Szpunar, 2010). For example, neuroimaging studies have revealed extensive overlap in the neural processes that are engaged when people remember past events and imagine future events or novel scenes (e.g., Addis, Wong, Addis, Pan, Vu, Laiser, & Schacter, 2009;Hassabis, Kumaran, & Maguire, 2007;Okuda et al, 2003;Spreng & Grady, 2010;Szpunar, Watson, & McDermott, 2007).…”

Section: Imagination Inflation and The Simulation Of Future Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive Constructive Processes and the Future of Memory

Schacter¹

2012

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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Memory serves critical functions in everyday life, but is also prone to error. This article examines adaptive constructive processes, which play a functional role in memory and cognition but can also produce distortions, errors, or illusions. The article describes several types of memory errors that are produced by adaptive constructive processes, and focuses in particular on the process of imagining or simulating events that might occur in one's personal future. Simulating future events relies on many of the same cognitive and neural processes as remembering past events, which may help to explain why imagination and memory can be easily confused. The article considers both pitfalls and adaptive aspects of future event simulation in the context of research on planning, prediction, problem solving, mind-wandering, prospective and retrospective memory, coping and positivity bias, and the interconnected set of brain regions known as the default network.

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Evolutionary economics of mental time travel?

Cited by 371 publications

References 48 publications

Impaired ability to imagine future pleasant events is associated with apathy in schizophrenia

Impaired ability to imagine future pleasant events is associated with apathy in schizophrenia

Is external memory memory? Biological memory and extended mind

Adaptive Constructive Processes and the Future of Memory

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