On the representational systems underlying prospection: Evidence from the event-cueing paradigm.

peer reviewedThe ability to think about the future-prospection-is central to many aspects of human cognition and behavior, from planning and decision making, to self-control and the construction of a sense of identity. Yet, the exact nature of the representational systems underlying prospection is not fully understood. Recent findings point to the critical role of episodic memory in imagining specific future events, but it is unlikely that prospection depends solely on this system. Using an event-cueing paradigm in two studies, we here show that specific events that people imagine might happen in their personal future are commonly embedded in broader event sequences-termed event clusters-that link a set of envisioned events according to causal and thematic relations. These findings provide novel evidence that prospection relies on multiple representational systems, with general autobiographical knowledge structures providing a frame that organizes imagined events in overarching event sequences. The results further suggest that knowledge about personal goals plays an important role in structuring these event sequences, especially for the distant future

Se projeter dans le future en période de confinement

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Influence of affective meaning on memory for contextual information

peer reviewedIn 4 experiments, the authors investigated the influence of the affective meaning of words on memory for 2 kinds of contextual features that differ in the amount of effortful processes they require to be encoded in memory (i.e., color and spatial location). The main results showed that memory for color, in which words were typed, was better for emotional than for neutral words, but only when color information was learned incidentally. In contrast, spatial location of the words was better remembered for emotional than for neutral words whatever the encoding conditions (intentional vs. incidental). It is suggested that the influence of affective meaning on context memory may involve an automatic attraction of attention to contextual features associated with emotional words

Emotional aspects of mental time travel

We consider three possible reasons why humans might accord a privileged status to emotional information when mentally traveling backward or forward in time. First, mental simulation of emotional situations helps one to make adaptive decisions. Second, it can serve an emotion regulation function. Third, it helps people to construct and maintain a positive view of the sel

Memory, future thinking, and the self. In honour of Martial Van der Linden.

Over the past 20 years, much progress has been made in understanding the relations between memory and future thinking, and their role in shaping our sense of self and identity. My own interest in these research questions owes much to Martial Van der Linden, with whom I had the chance to interact closely for several years. The purpose of this article is to pay tribute to him by reviewing the work we initiated together on autobiographical memory and future-oriented thinking. I first review our early work on the relationship between memory and future thinking and discuss their role in self-representation. Then, I provide an overview of the underlying neural bases and describe the alterations of autobiographical thinking that characterize certain psychological disorders. Finally, I outline an integrative framework that I recently proposed to account for the cognitive structure of past and future autobiographical thinking

Differential contributions of default and dorsal attention networks to remembering thoughts and external stimuli from real-life events

Episodic memories are typically composed of perceptual information derived from the external environment and representations of internal states (e.g., one’s thoughts during prior episodes). To date, however, research has mostly focused on the remembrance of external stimuli, such that little is known about how internal mentation is represented within episodic memory. In the present fMRI study, we examined the neural correlates of these two components of episodic memories using a novel method of cuing memories from photographs taken during real-life events. We found that, compared to corresponding semantic memory tasks, memories for internal thoughts and external elements were associated with activity in brain areas supporting episodic recollection. Most importantly, however, the two kinds of memories also showed differential activation in large-scale brain networks: the remembrance of external elements was associated with greater activity in the dorsal attention network, whereas memories of internal thoughts mainly recruited default network areas. These findings shed new light on the representation of internal and external aspects of prior experience within episodic memory. The default network may contribute to the reinstatement of thoughts experienced during past events, whereas the dorsal attention network may support the allocation of attention to visuo-spatial features within episodic memory representations

Identity but not expression memory for unfamiliar faces is affected by ageing

We examined age-related differences in memory for identity and emotional expression of unfamiliar faces. Younger and older adults were presented with happy and angry faces and were later asked to recognise the same faces displaying a neutral expression. When a face was recognised, they also had to remember what the initial expression of the face had been. In addition, states of awareness associated with both identity and expression memory were assessed with the remember/know/guess paradigm. Older adults showed less recollective experience than younger adults for identity but not for emotional expressions of the faces. This evidence indicates that age-related differences in memory may depend on the nature of the to-be-remembered information, with emotional/social information being remembered as well in older as in younger adults

Embodiment effects in memory for facial identity and facial expression

Research suggests that states of the body, such as postures, facial expressions, and arm movements, play central roles in social information processing. This study investigated the effects of approach/avoidance movements on memory for facial information. Faces displaying a happy or a sad expression were presented and participants were induced to perform either an approach (arm flexion) or an avoidance (arm extension) movement. States of awareness associated with memory for facial identity and memory for facial expression were then assessed with the Remember/Know/Guess paradigm. The results showed that performing avoidance movements increased Know responses for the identity, and Know/Guess responses for the expression, of valence-compatible stimuli (i.e., sad faces as compared to happy faces), whereas this was not the case for approach movements. Based on these findings, it is suggested that approach/avoidance motor actions influence memory encoding by increasing the ease of processing for valence-compatible information

Why we imagine our future: Introducing the Functions of Future Thinking Scale (FoFTS)

peer reviewedImagining future events is a crucial cognitive process in adaptation, but impairments have been identified in a range of mental disorders. Taking a functional approach to future thinking, this paper reports on the development and deployment of a scale to assess the frequency of self-reported functions of future thinking: The Functions of Future Thinking Scale (FoFTS). In Study 1 (N = 565) items were developed and subjected to exploratory factor analysis. Ten factors were extracted representing distinct purposes of future thinking: Boredom Reduction, Death Preparation, Identity Contrasting, Negative Emotion Regulation, Social Bonding, Goal Setting, Planning, Problem-Solving, Decision-Making, and Positive Emotion Regulation. Construct, convergent and divergent validity were established. The FoFTS predicted unique variance in transdiagnostic variables even after accounting for frequency, attitudes, and clarity of future thought. In Study 2 (N = 467), confirmatory factor analysis showed the 10-factor FoFTS model was an excellent fit to the data. In Study 3 (N = 106) it was shown that participants with probable major depression, relative to non-depressed participants, reported a significantly different profile of future thinking for different purposes. In conclusion, the FoFTS can be used to examine future thinking from a functional perspective and may help enrich models of psychopathology

The temporal compression of daily-live events in working memory

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