The Complex Role of Mental Time Travel in Depressive and Anxiety Disorders: An Ensemble Perspective

Abstract

The ensemble hypothesis proposes that uniquely human cognitive abilities depend on more than just language. Besides overt language, inner speech, and causal interpretations, executive attention, mental time travel, and theory of mind abilities are essential parts that combine additively and even multiplicatively. In this review, we consider the implications of the ensemble hypothesis for the psychopathologies of anxiety and depression. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are two of the most common mental disorders worldwide. The mechanisms that differentiate them are difficult to identify, however. Mental time travel has been implicated in models of depressive and anxiety disorders, but here we argue that at least two other ensemble components, namely, interpreter biases and executive attention, must also be considered. Depressive and anxiety disorders have both been found to show impairments in all three of these components, but the precise relationships seem to distinguish the two kinds of disorders. In reviewing the literature, we develop models for depression and anxiety that take into account an ensemble of mental components that are unique for each disorder. We specify how the relations among mental time travel, interpreter biases, and executive attentional control differ in depression and anxiety. We conclude by considering the implications of these models for treating and conceptualizing anxiety and depression.

Posttraumatic growth in palliative care patients and its associations with psychological distress and quality of life

“…Such results suggest that moderate to very high growth is associated with lower levels of depression, possibly because those experiencing growth are able to adequately process past traumas and build a stronger, more positive sense of self and life narrative overtime. When considering the ensemble hypothesis on human cognitive abilities (Kellogg et al, 2020), depressive disorders are associated with excessively pessimistic explanatory styles and persistent negative rumination. Thereby, people tend to focus on and blame themselves for negative past experiences, leading to difficulties in imagining a positive future.…”

Linguistic markers for major depressive disorder: a cross-sectional study using an automated procedure

“…This tendency of increased focus on past and diminished focus on present and future tense was also observed in our previous study ( Trifu et al, 2017 ). The tendency is in connection with a negative exploratory style, in which the person with depression focuses on negative past events ( Kellogg et al, 2020 ), while their capacity to project themselves in a positive present or future action diminishes ( Peterson and Seligman, 1984 ; Pomerantz and Rose, 2014 ).…”

Generalised anxiety disorder, depressive symptoms and their subjective change after the first wave of COVID-19 among gamers in Poland

“…This does not mean that the retrospective method can substitute longitudinal studies since there was no comparative data in this study, but it suggests that the higher the level of anxiety and depression, the more severely the change is perceived (independently of whether it is true or not). Studies show that experiencing anxiety or depression leads to a perception of various stimuli in a distorted way [ 81 ], mainly as more threatening.…”