Episodic simulation of future events: concepts, data, and applications

Self-projection in early childhood: No evidence for a common underpinning of episodic memory, episodic future thinking, theory of mind, and spatial navigation

Buckner and Carroll [Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2007), Vol. 11, pp. 49-57] argued that episodic memory (EM), episodic future thinking (EFT), theory of mind (ToM), and spatial navigation all build on the same mental mechanism-self-projection, that is, the ability to disengage from the immediate present and shift perspective to alternative temporal, mental, or spatial situations. Developmental studies indeed show that all four abilities undergo profound developmental changes around 4 years of age, and there are first indications of developmental interrelations between some of the abilities. However, strong evidence for the self-projection account, namely that all four abilities are interrelated in their emergence during early childhood, is still lacking. To thoroughly investigate the self-projection hypothesis, we tested 151 4-year-old children on 12 different tasks assessing their EM, EFT, ToM, and spatial navigation skills (3 tasks per ability). Structural equation modeling under maximum likelihood estimation was conducted on a final sample of 144 children to evaluate a model with the 12 tasks as indicators and self-projection as the latent factor. The model showed a very good fit to the data. However, the factor loadings, indicating the strength of association between the latent factor and the indicators, were very low-which speaks against the validity of the measurement model. In summary, the results do not support the assumption of a common latent factor underlying the various abilities EM, EFT, ToM, and spatial navigation. Implications of our results for the self-projection account and possible related theoretical and methodological challenges are discussed.

Simulating the best and worst of times: the powers and perils of emotional simulation

We are remarkably capable of simulating events that we have never experienced. These simulated events often paint an emotional picture to behold, such as the best and worst possible outcomes that we might face. This review synthesises dispersed literature exploring the role of emotion in simulation. Drawing from work that suggests that simulations can influence our preferences, decision-making, and prosociality, we argue for a critical role of emotion in informing the consequences of simulation. We further unpack burgeoning evidence suggesting that the effects of emotional simulation transcend the laboratory. We propose avenues by which emotional simulation may be harnessed for both personal and collective good in applied contexts. We conclude by offering important future directions.

Tasks activating the default mode network map multiple functional systems

Recent developments in network neuroscience suggest reconsidering what we thought we knew about the default mode network (DMN). Although this network has always been seen as unitary and associated with the resting state, a new deconstructive line of research is pointing out that the DMN could be divided into multiple subsystems supporting different functions. By now, it is well known that the DMN is not only deactivated by tasks, but also involved in affective, mnestic, and social paradigms, among others. Nonetheless, it is starting to become clear that the array of activities in which it is involved, might also be extended to more extrinsic functions. The present meta-analytic study is meant to push this boundary a bit further. The BrainMap database was searched for all experimental paradigms activating the DMN, and their activation likelihood estimation maps were then computed. An additional map of task-induced deactivations was also created. A multidimensional scaling indicated that such maps could be arranged along an anatomo-psychological gradient, which goes from midline core activations, associated with the most internal functions, to that of lateral cortices, involved in more external tasks. Further multivariate investigations suggested that such extrinsic mode is especially related to reward, semantic, and emotional functions. However, an important finding was that the various activation maps were often different from the canonical representation of the resting-state DMN, sometimes overlapping with it only in some peripheral nodes, and including external regions such as the insula. Altogether, our findings suggest that the intrinsic-extrinsic opposition may be better understood in the form of a continuous scale, rather than a dichotomy.

Effects of age and gender on neural correlates of emotion imagery

Mental imagery is part of people's own internal processing and plays an important role in everyday life, cognition and pathology. The neural network supporting mental imagery is bottom‐up modulated by the imagery content. Here, we examined the complex associations of gender and age with the neural mechanisms underlying emotion imagery. We assessed the brain circuits involved in emotion mental imagery (vs. action imagery), controlled by a letter detection task on the same stimuli, chosen to ensure attention to the stimuli and to discourage imagery, in 91 men and women aged 14–65 years using fMRI. In women, compared with men, emotion imagery significantly increased activation within the right putamen, which is involved in emotional processing. Increasing age, significantly decreased mental imagery‐related activation in the left insula and cingulate cortex, areas involved in awareness of ones' internal states, and it significantly decreased emotion verbs‐related activation in the left putamen, which is part of the limbic system. This finding suggests a top‐down mechanism by which gender and age, in interaction with bottom‐up effect of type of stimulus, or directly, can modulate the brain mechanisms underlying mental imagery.

Hyperreactivity to uncertainty is a key feature of subjective cognitive impairment

With an increasingly ageing global population, more people are presenting with concerns about their cognitive function, but not all have an underlying neurodegenerative diagnosis. Subjective cognitive impairment (SCI) is a common condition describing self-reported deficits in cognition without objective evidence of cognitive impairment. Many individuals with SCI suffer from depression and anxiety, which have been hypothesised to account for their cognitive complaints. Despite this association between SCI and affective features, the cognitive and brain mechanisms underlying SCI are poorly understood. Here, we show that people with SCI are hyperreactive to uncertainty and that this might be a key mechanism accounting for their affective burden. Twenty-seven individuals with SCI performed an information sampling task, where they could actively gather information prior to decisions. Across different conditions, SCI participants sampled faster and obtained more information than matched controls to resolve uncertainty. Remarkably, despite their ‘urgent’ sampling behaviour, SCI participants were able to maintain their efficiency. Hyperreactivity to uncertainty indexed by this sampling behaviour correlated with the severity of affective burden including depression and anxiety. Analysis of MRI resting functional connectivity revealed that SCI participants had stronger insular-hippocampal connectivity compared to controls, which also correlated with faster sampling. These results suggest that altered uncertainty processing is a key mechanism underlying the psycho-cognitive manifestations in SCI and implicate a specific brain network target for future treatment.

How do cannabis users mentally travel in time? Evidence from an fMRI study of episodic future thinking

RATIONALE

Episodic future thinking (EFT) is a cognitive function that allows individuals to imagine novel experiences that may happen in the future. Prior studies show that EFT is impaired in different groups of substance users. However, there is no evidence regarding the neurobiological mechanisms of EFT in cannabis users.

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to compare brain activations of regular cannabis users and non-using controls during an EFT fMRI task. Exploratory analyses were also conducted to investigate the association between EFT and cannabis use variables (e.g., duration of use, age onset, frequency of use).

METHODS

Twenty current cannabis users and 22 drug-naïve controls underwent an fMRI scanning session while completing a task involving envisioning future-related events and retrieval of past memories as a control condition. The EFT fMRI task was adapted from the autobiographical interview and composed of 20 auditory cue sentences (10 cues for past and 10 cues for future events). Participants were asked to recall a past or generate a future event, in response to the cues, and then rate their vividness after each response.

RESULTS

We found that cannabis users compared to non-user controls had lower activation within the cerebellum, medial and superior temporal gyrus, lateral occipital cortex, and occipital fusiform gyrus while envisioning future events. Cannabis users rated the vividness of past events significantly lower than non-users (P < 0.005). There were marginal group differences for rating the vividness of future events (P = 0.052). Significant correlations were also found between the medial and superior temporal gyrus activities and behavioral measures of EFT and episodic memory.

CONCLUSIONS

Cannabis users, compared to drug-naïve controls, have lower brain activation in EFT relevant regions. Thus, any attempts to improve aberrant EFT performance in cannabis users may benefit from EFT training.

A Brief Review on 4D Weather Visualization

The accelerated changes on our planet have led to a growing interest in climate change and its consequences: natural hazards and adverse socio-economic impacts. However, the development of climate research and the proliferation of datasets require an integrated and efficient approach to the analysis, investigation, and visualization of atmospheric meteorological data. Thus, we propose a literature review of existing systems viewing meteorological phenomena in four and three dimensions. Moreover, we evaluate meteorological occurrences to better understand the dynamics associated with a meteorological phenomenon and visualize different weather data. Based on the investigation of tools and methods, we consider the existence of different ways of representing meteorological data and methodologies. However, it was imperative to obtain knowledge and create our way of visualizing weather data. This article found eleven existing solutions for 4D meteorological visualization and meteorological phenomena.

The role of episodic simulation in motivating commonplace harms

Every day, people face choices which could produce negative outcomes for others, and understanding these decisions is a major aim of social psychology. Here, we show that episodic simulation - a key psychological process implicated in other types of social and moral decision-making - can play a surprising role. Across six experiments, we find that imagining performing actions which adversely affect others makes people report a higher likelihood of performing those actions in the future. This effect happens, in part, because when people construe the actions as morally justified (as they often do spontaneously), imagining doing it makes them feel good. These findings stand in contrast to traditional accounts of harm aversion in moral psychology, and instead contribute to a growing body of evidence that people often cast harming others in a positive light.

Compromised future thinking: another cognitive cost of temporal lobe epilepsy

The ability to mentally travel forward through time allows humans to envisage a diverse array of possible events taking place in the future, helping us to choose which pathway to take in life. In epilepsy, we assume that patients use this cognitive ability when deciding between various treatment options, but this assumption has not been robustly tested. The temporal lobes are key contributors to this ‘future thinking’ and its building blocks include cognitive functions commonly impaired in temporal lobe epilepsy such as memory and language, giving rise to a hypothesis that ‘future thinking’ is impaired in this patient cohort. Participants were 68 adults: 37 with neurosurgically-naïve, unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (51% right lateralized) and 31 healthy controls of similar age, sex and intellectual ability to the participants with epilepsy. Future thinking was measured using an imagined experiences task validated in other neurological populations. Tools well-established in temporal lobe epilepsy were used to measure potential cognitive correlates of future thinking. Analysis of variance revealed significantly impoverished future thinking in both left and right temporal lobe epilepsy relative to controls (P = 0.001, η_p²=0.206), with no difference between temporal lobe epilepsy groups (P > 0.05). Future thinking deficits in left temporal lobe epilepsy were paralleled by deficits in scene construction, whereas impoverished future thinking in right temporal lobe epilepsy occurred in the setting of intact scene construction. Deficits in future thinking were associated with reductions in lexical access and episodic autobiographic memory in both epilepsy groups. In sum, future thinking is compromised in both left and right temporal lobe epilepsy. The deficit in left temporal lobe epilepsy is largely explainable by dysfunction in verbal cognitive processes including scene construction. While the basis of the deficits observed with right temporal foci shares features with that of left temporal lobe epilepsy, their intact scene construction raises questions about the role of the left and right temporal lobes in future thinking and scene construction and the relationship between these two constructs, including whether right temporal lobe might play a specific role in future thinking in terms of creative processing. Clinicians should take impaired future thinking into account when counselling temporal lobe epilepsy patients about various treatment options, as they may struggle to vividly imagine what different outcomes might mean for their future selves.

Whole-brain white matter correlates of personality profiles predictive of subjective well-being

We investigated the white matter correlates of personality profiles predictive of subjective well-being. Using principal component analysis to first determine the possible personality profiles onto which core personality measures would load, we subsequently searched for whole-brain white matter correlations with these profiles. We found three personality profiles that correlated with the integrity of white matter tracts. The correlates of an “optimistic” personality profile suggest (a) an intricate network for self-referential processing that helps regulate negative affect and maintain a positive outlook on life, (b) a sustained capacity for visually tracking rewards in the environment and (c) a motor readiness to act upon the conviction that desired rewards are imminent. The correlates of a “short-term approach behavior” profile was indicative of minimal loss of integrity in white matter tracts supportive of lifting certain behavioral barriers, possibly allowing individuals to act more outgoing and carefree in approaching people and rewards. Lastly, a “long-term approach behavior” profile’s association with white matter tracts suggests lowered sensitivity to transient updates of stimulus-based associations of rewards and setbacks, thus facilitating the successful long-term pursuit of goals. Together, our findings yield convincing evidence that subjective well-being has its manifestations in the brain.

Effect of Product Presentation Videos on Consumers' Purchase Intention: The Role of Perceived Diagnosticity, Mental Imagery, and Product Rating

The product presentation videos on E-commerce platforms have a significant influence on consumers' purchase decisions, and enterprises have focused on choosing the type of product presentation videos. Based on the resource matching theory, mental imagery theory and cue utilization theory, this study investigated the influence of product presentation videos type (product appearance video vs. product usage video) on consumers' purchase intention and the moderating effect of product rating (low vs. high). Through three pre-experiments and two formal experiments, the results showed that the product usage video has a stronger effect on consumers' purchase intention more than the product appearance video, which is mediated by perceived diagnosticity and mental imagery. In addition, product rating moderated the influence of product presentation videos type on consumers' purchase intention. The product usage video would improve consumers' purchase intention more than the product appearance video when the product rating is high; however, there is no significant difference in the impact of two types of videos on consumers' purchase intention when the product rating is low. This study supplements the research on product presentation videos and provides a reference for online retailers to select effective product presentation videos.

The role of episodic memory in imagining autobiographical events: the influence of event expectancy and context familiarity

Episodic memory plays a common role in constructing mental representations of past and imagined autobiographical events. Research has suggested that certain factors will affect how episodic memory is used during mental construction, such as the expectancy that an event will occur and the familiarity with an event's context. The aim of the current study was to understand how these factors affect episodic memory engagement and subjective experience during event imagination. In a within-subjects design, participants viewed context cues (high or low in familiarity), described imagined autobiographical events (expected or not expected to occur in these contexts) and rated their experience. 24-hours later, participants recalled and described the same events. We found that expectancy of the imagined events was associated with quicker access and increased episodic detail generation, regardless of context familiarity. Additionally, both event expectancy and context familiarity affected the subjective quality of the imagined events. Examining the episodic details in descriptions after the delay revealed comparable effects of these two factors. Our results underscore the importance of event expectancy in recruiting episodic memory for imagined autobiographical experiences.

The Interprocessual-Self Theory in Support of Human Neuroscience Studies

Rather than occurring abstractly (autonomously), ethical growth occurs in interpersonal relationships (IRs). It requires optimally functioning cognitive processes [attention, working memory (WM), episodic/autobiographical memory (AM), inhibition, flexibility, among others], emotional processes (physical contact, motivation, and empathy), processes surrounding ethical, intimacy, and identity issues, and other psychological processes (self-knowledge, integration, and the capacity for agency). Without intending to be reductionist, we believe that these aspects are essential for optimally engaging in IRs and for the personal constitution. While they are all integrated into our daily life, in research and academic work, it is hard to see how they are integrated. Thus, we need better theoretical frameworks for studying them. That study and integration thereof are undertaken differently depending on different views of what it means to live as a human being. We rely on neuroscientific data to support the chosen theory to offer knowledge to understand human beings and interpersonal relational growth. We should of course note that to describe what makes up the uniqueness of being, acting, and growing as a human person involves something much more profound which requires too, a methodology that opens the way for a theory of the person that responds to the concerns of philosophy and philosophical anthropology from many disciplines and methods (Orón Semper, 2015; Polo, 2015), but this is outside the scope of this study. With these in mind, this article aims to introduce a new explanatory framework, called the Interprocessual-self (IPS), for the neuroscientific findings that allow for a holistic consideration of the previously mentioned processes. Contributing to the knowledge of personal growth and avoiding a reductionist view, we first offer a general description of the research that supports the interrelation between personal virtue in IRs and relevant cognitive, emotional, and ethic-moral processes. This reveals how relationships allow people to relate ethically and grow as persons. We include conceptualizations and descriptions of their neural bases. Secondly, with the IPS model, we explore neuroscientific findings regarding self-knowledge, integration, and agency, all psychological processes that stimulate inner exploration of the self concerning the other. We find that these fundamental conditions can be understood from IPS theory. Finally, we explore situations that involve the integration of two levels, namely the interpersonal one and the social contexts of relationships.

Telephone-based behavioral activation with mental imagery for depression: A pilot randomized clinical trial in isolated older adults during the Covid-19 pandemic

OBJECTIVES

To shield vulnerable persons, particularly the elderly, during the Covid-19 pandemic governments around the world have advised to use social distancing and self-isolation. Social isolation might put older adults at an increased risk for mental health problems such as depression. There is a need for brief, easy-accessible psychological treatments for depressive symptoms that can be delivered remotely. The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of telephone-delivered Behavioral Activation with Mental Imagery (BA-MI) for the treatment of depressive symptoms in individuals 65 years and older living in isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

METHODS

In this open-label pilot randomized clinical trial, N = 41 individuals aged 65 years or older with clinically significant symptoms of depression were randomly assigned to either a BA-MI treatment condition, or an Attention-Assessment control condition delivered over the telephone over a 4-week period.

RESULTS

Depressive symptoms decreased more in the treatment condition compared to the control condition. At post-treatment, 2 out of 16 participants in the treatment condition met diagnostic criteria for depression compared to 9 out of 13 in the control condition. Most participants in the treatment condition were satisfied with the treatment and few adverse effects were observed.

CONCLUSIONS

This pilot study suggests that behavioral activation with mental imagery delivered over the telephone is feasible, acceptable, and potentially efficacious for the treatment of depressive symptoms in older individuals living in isolation. Replication in larger samples is needed.

Restoration of default mode network and task positive network anti-correlation associated with mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for bipolar disorder

Individuals with bipolar disorder (BP) show abnormalities in the default mode network (DMN), a brain network active at rest and during self-referential cognition. In healthy individuals, the DMN is anti-correlated (strongly negatively correlated) with the task positive network (TPN), a brain network that is active during attention demanding tasks. Mindfulness has been linked to changes in DMN connectivity. We investigated the effects of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) versus supportive psychotherapy (SP) on the relationship between these two networks in individuals with BP. We identified differences in BOLD resting state DMN-TPN connectivity between healthy controls (HC; n = 22) and individuals with DSM-IV BP before treatment (n = 22) using a seed region in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a key TPN node. We then explored changes in DMN-TPN connectivity after 12 weeks of MBCT or SP. Before treatment, BP individuals showed positively correlated activity and the HC group showed negatively correlated activity between the DLPFC and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). After treatment, BP individuals who received MBCT showed negatively correlated DLPFC-PCC activity. BP individuals who received SP did not show a significant change. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy can restore the anti-correlation between the DMN and TPN in individuals with BP.

Deficits in episodic future thinking following acute alcohol consumption

RATIONALE

Acute alcohol consumption adversely affects many cognitive abilities, including episodic memory and executive functioning. However, no study to date has tested whether these acute effects of alcohol also extend to episodic future thinking (EFT). This is a surprising omission given that EFT refers to the ability to imagine oneself experiencing the future, a highly adaptive ability that has been implicated in many important functional behaviours. EFT is also thought to impose demands on episodic memory and executive control.

OBJECTIVES

The current study was designed to provide the first test of whether a moderate dose of alcohol influences EFT and whether any observed EFT difficulties are secondary to broader problems in episodic memory and executive functioning. Sex differences in EFT following acute alcohol consumption were also examined.

METHODS

One hundred and twenty-four healthy adult social drinkers were recruited and randomly assigned to either the alcohol (n = 61) or placebo (n = 63) condition. Participants were administered a dose of 0.6 g/kg alcohol or a matched placebo drink.

RESULTS

Relative to the placebo condition, EFT was impaired by acute alcohol consumption. This impairment was underpinned by broader difficulties with episodic memory, but not executive functioning. There were no sex differences in EFT performance following acute alcohol use.

CONCLUSION

These data provide novel insights into the effects of acute alcohol consumption on EFT and the broader cognitive mechanisms that contribute to these difficulties. The results are discussed in relation to their implications for understanding many of the maladaptive behaviours commonly associated with acute alcohol use.

Brief inductions in episodic past or future thinking: effects on episodic detail and problem-solving

Episodic specificity inductions, involving brief training in recollecting episodic details, have been shown to improve subsequent performance on tasks involving remembering the past, imagining the future and problem solving. The current study examined if specificity inductions targeting self-referential past or future episodic thinking would have dissociable effects on generating past and future episodic detail and problem solving. Sixty-three participants were randomised to either a past self-referential or future self-referential episodic induction. All participants also completed a control task. Participants randomised to the self-referential future thinking induction generated more episodic details on past and future narrative tasks compared to a control task, whereas participants randomised to a self-referential past thinking induction showed similar performance to the control task. When examining within-group performance of participants randomised to the past or future induction, we found some evidence of dissociable effects of inductions on narrative generation tasks, but not on problem solving outcomes. Our findings suggest that self-referential inductions may be useful for increasing episodic specificity, but that the temporal distance and direction of the induction matters. We discuss our results in the context of the potential clinical utility of this approach for populations vulnerable to autobiographical memory disruption.

The Ape That Lived to Tell the Tale. The Evolution of the Art of Storytelling and Its Relationship to Mental Time Travel and Theory of Mind

Engaging in the art of creating and telling stories is a defining behaviour of humankind. Humans have been sharing stories with each other, with and without words, since the dawn of recorded history, but the cognitive foundations of the behaviour can be traced deeper into our past. The emergence of stories can be strongly linked to Mental Time Travel (the ability to recall the past and imagine the future) and plays a key role in our ability to communicate past, present and future scenarios with other individuals, within and beyond our lifetimes. Stories are products engraved within the concept of time, constructed to elucidate the past experiences of the self, but designed with the future in mind, thus imparting lessons of such experiences to the receiver. By being privy to the experiences of others, humans can imagine themselves in a similar position to the protagonist of the story, thus mentally learning from an experience they might have never encountered other than in the mind's eye. Evolutionary Psychology investigates how the engagement in artistic endeavours by our ancestors in the Pleistocene granted them an advantage when confronted with obstacles that challenged their survival or reproductive fitness and questions whether art is an adaptation of the human mind or a spandrel of other cognitive adaptations. However, little attention has been placed on the cognitive abilities that might have been imperative for the development of art. Here, we examine the relationship between art, storytelling, Mental Time Travel and Theory of Mind (i.e., the ability to attribute mental states to others). We suggest that Mental Time Travel played a key role in the development of storytelling because through stories, humans can fundamentally transcend their present condition, by being able to imagine different times, separate realities, and place themselves and others anywhere within the time space continuum. We argue that the development of a Theory of Mind also sparked storytelling practises in humans as a method of diffusing the past experiences of the self to others whilst enabling the receiver to dissociate between the past experiences of others and their own, and to understand them as lessons for a possible future. We propose that when artistic products rely on storytelling in form and function, they ought to be considered separate from other forms of art whose appreciation capitalise on our aesthetic preferences.

The Effect of Cognitive Load on the Retrieval of Long-Term Memory: An fMRI Study

One of the less well-understood aspects of memory function is the mechanism by which the brain responds to an increasing load of memory, either during encoding or retrieval. Identifying the brain structures which manage this increasing cognitive demand would enhance our knowledge of human memory. Despite numerous studies about the effect of cognitive loads on working memory processes, whether these can be applied to long-term memory processes is unclear. We asked 32 healthy young volunteers to memorize all possible details of 24 images over a 12-day period ending 2 days before the fMRI scan. The images were of 12 categories relevant to daily events, with each category including a high and a low load image. Behavioral assessments on a separate group of participants (#22) provided the average loads of the images. The participants had to retrieve these previously memorized images during the fMRI scan in 15 s, with their eyes closed. We observed seven brain structures showing the highest activation with increasing load of the retrieved images, viz. parahippocampus, cerebellum, superior lateral occipital, fusiform and lingual gyri, precuneus, and posterior cingulate gyrus. Some structures showed reduced activation when retrieving higher load images, such as the anterior cingulate, insula, and supramarginal and postcentral gyri. The findings of this study revealed that the mechanism by which a difficult-to-retrieve memory is handled is mainly by elevating the activation of the responsible brain areas and not by getting other brain regions involved, which is a help to better understand the LTM retrieval process in the human brain.

Prospective memory deficits following acute alcohol consumption

BACKGROUND

Prospective memory is a critical neurocognitive capacity that refers to the ability to execute delayed intentions. To date, few studies have investigated the effects of acute alcohol consumption on prospective memory, and important questions remain about the mechanisms that might underpin acute alcohol-induced prospective memory impairment.

AIMS

The current study sought to clarify the nature and magnitude of prospective memory difficulties following acute alcohol consumption and to test the degree to which any problems with prospective remembering might be a secondary consequence of broader cognitive impairment. This study also investigated whether there were potential sex differences.

METHODS

In all, 124 healthy adult social drinkers were assigned to either the alcohol (n = 61) or placebo (n = 63) condition. Participants were administered a dose of 0.6 g/kg alcohol or a matched placebo drink and then asked to complete a measure of prospective memory. A broader neurocognitive test battery was also administered.

RESULTS

Relative to the placebo condition, acute alcohol intoxication led to significant impairment on all prospective memory tasks, with effects mostly large in magnitude. These difficulties could not be explained by broader problems in retrospective memory, executive function or episodic future thinking. In addition, females recorded a higher blood alcohol concentration than males; however, no sex differences in prospective memory performance were identified following acute alcohol use.

CONCLUSION

The results show that acutely, even a moderate dose of alcohol substantially impairs prospective memory function. These findings have potentially important implications for understanding many of the maladaptive behaviours associated with acute alcohol consumption.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away: How temporal are episodic contents?

A prominent feature of mental event (i.e. 'episodic') simulations is their temporal orientation: human adults can generate episodic representations directed towards the past or the future. Here, we investigated how the temporal orientation of imagined events relates to the contents of these events. Is there something intrinsically temporal about episodic contents? Or does their temporality rely on a distinct set of representations? In three experiments (N = 360), we asked participants to generate and later recall a series of imagined events differing in (1) location, (2) time of day, (3) temporal orientation, and (4) weekday. We then tested to what extent successful recall of episodic content (i.e. (1) and (2)) would predict recall of temporality and/or weekday information. Results showed that recall of temporal orientation was only weakly predicted by recall of episodic contents. Nonetheless, temporal orientation was more strongly predicted by content recall than weekday recall. This finding suggests that episodic simulations are unlikely to be intrinsically temporal in nature. Instead, similar to other forms of temporal information, temporal orientation might be determined from such contents by reconstructive post-retrieval processes. These results have implications for how the human ability to 'mentally travel' in time is cognitively implemented.

Skipping ahead: A circuit for representing the past, present, and future

Envisioning the future is intuitively linked to our ability to remember the past. Within the memory system, substantial work has demonstrated the involvement of the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus in representing the past and present. Recent data shows that both the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus encode future trajectories, which are segregated in time by alternating cycles of the theta rhythm. Here, we discuss how information is temporally organized by these brain regions supported by the medial septum, nucleus reuniens, and parahippocampal regions. Finally, we highlight a brain circuit that we predict is essential for the temporal segregation of future scenarios.

Hippocampal sharp-wave ripples in cognitive map maintenance versus episodic simulation

Hippocampal sharp-wave ripples (SWRs) have been proposed to support memory-based decision-making. A new study by Gillespie et al. (in this issue of Neuron) provides important new insights on how past experiences and future choices are reflected in neuronal activity during SWRs.

The effect of physical activity on anhedonia in individuals with depressive symptoms

The therapeutic effect of antidepressants has been demonstrated for anhedonia in patients with depression. However, antidepressants may cause side-effects, such as cardiovascular dysfunction. Although physical activity has minor side-effects, it may serve as an alternative for improving anhedonia and depression. We sought to investigate whether physical activity reduces the level of anhedonia in individuals with depression. Fifty-six university students with moderate depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory total score > 16) were divided into three training groups: the Running Group (RG, n = 19), the Stretching Group (SG, n = 19), and the Control Group (n = 18). We employed the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task and the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS) to evaluate hedonic capacity. All participants in the RG and SG received 8 weeks of jogging and stretching training, respectively. The RG experienced an increase in the level of arousal during anticipation of a future reward and recalled less negativity towards the loss condition. The SG exhibited enhanced scores on the Anticipatory and Consummatory Pleasure subscales of the TEPS after training. Moreover, in the RG, greater improvements in anticipatory arousal ratings for pleasure and remembered valence ratings for negative affect were associated with longer training duration, lower maximum heart rate, and higher consumed calories during training. To conclude, physical activity is effective in improving anticipatory anhedonia in individuals with depressive symptoms.

Adapting cognitive bias modification to train healthy prospection

Prospection, the mental simulation of future events, has been theoretically linked to physical and mental health. Prior studies have found that prospection is malleable; however, no research to our knowledge has tested whether a scalable intervention explicitly targeting the simulation of positive future outcomes can lead to more generalized positive prospection, and enhance positive outlook and reduce distress. The current study tested a novel, web-based cognitive bias modification for interpretation (CBM-I) program designed to shift prospective bias towards more positive (as opposed to negative) representations of future outcomes among 172 participants selected for having a relatively negative baseline expectancy bias. Results showed that following CBM-I, participants in active training conditions exhibited more positive expectations about the future, and increased self-efficacy and growth mindset. Also, optimism increased and depression and anxiety symptoms decreased following active training, but this also occurred for the control condition. Analyses did not suggest that changes in positive expectations mediated changes in positive outlook outcomes. Results suggest that an online prospection intervention can lead to more positive expectations about future events and improve positive outlook, though open questions remain about what accounts for the training effects.

Mental imagery-based episodic simulation amplifies motivation and behavioural engagement in planned reward activities

Preliminary evidence suggests mental imagery-based episodic simulation of planned reward activities may amplify motivation and promote greater behavioural engagement, particularly for activities with high motivational barriers (Renner, Murphy, Ji, Manly, & Holmes, 2019). This study conducted a conceptual replication and extension of Renner et al. (2019). N = 81 first-year university students self-selected and scheduled two reward activities (one hedonic, one mastery) for the following week before being randomly allocated to either an Imagery-Experiential elaboration condition (n = 27), a Verbal-Reasoning elaboration condition (n = 28), or a Scheduling-only Control condition (n = 26). Following the lab session, all participants received standardized daily prompts to complete daily activity diaries online for seven days. The Imagery-Experiential condition reported greater increases in anticipatory pleasure (state mood), anticipated pleasure, and self-reported motivation compared to the Scheduling-only Control condition, and greater increases in anticipatory pleasure (state mood), but not anticipated pleasure or motivation, relative to the Verbal-Reasoning condition. Consistent with Renner et al. (2019), the Imagery-Experiential condition, but not the Verbal-Reasoning condition, reported more frequent engagement in high motivational barrier activities than the Scheduling-only Control condition. Exploratory mediational analyses suggested that mental imagery may exert unique motivational impacts via its impact on anticipatory pleasure (state mood), although indirect effects were only observed for self-reported motivation change in the lab, with real world behavioural effects falling short of statistical significance.

Pairing facts with imagined consequences improves pandemic-related risk perception

The COVID-19 pandemic reached staggering new peaks during a global resurgence more than a year after the crisis began. Although public health guidelines initially helped to slow the spread of disease, widespread pandemic fatigue and prolonged harm to financial stability and mental well-being contributed to this resurgence. In the late stage of the pandemic, it became clear that new interventions were needed to support long-term behavior change. Here, we examined subjective perceived risk about COVID-19 and the relationship between perceived risk and engagement in risky behaviors. In study 1 (n = 303), we found that subjective perceived risk was likely inaccurate but predicted compliance with public health guidelines. In study 2 (n = 735), we developed a multifaceted intervention designed to realign perceived risk with actual risk. Participants completed an episodic simulation task; we expected that imagining a COVID-related scenario would increase the salience of risk information and enhance behavior change. Immediately following the episodic simulation, participants completed a risk estimation task with individualized feedback about local viral prevalence. We found that information prediction error, a measure of surprise, drove beneficial change in perceived risk and willingness to engage in risky activities. Imagining a COVID-related scenario beforehand enhanced the effect of prediction error on learning. Importantly, our intervention produced lasting effects that persisted after a 1- to 3-wk delay. Overall, we describe a fast and feasible online intervention that effectively changed beliefs and intentions about risky behaviors.

Visual predictions, neural oscillations and naïve physics

Prediction is a core function of the human visual system. Contemporary research suggests the brain builds predictive internal models of the world to facilitate interactions with our dynamic environment. Here, we wanted to examine the behavioural and neurological consequences of disrupting a core property of peoples’ internal models, using naturalistic stimuli. We had people view videos of basketball and asked them to track the moving ball and predict jump shot outcomes, all while we recorded eye movements and brain activity. To disrupt people’s predictive internal models, we inverted footage on half the trials, so dynamics were inconsistent with how movements should be shaped by gravity. When viewing upright videos people were better at predicting shot outcomes, at tracking the ball position, and they had enhanced alpha-band oscillatory activity in occipital brain regions. The advantage for predicting upright shot outcomes scaled with improvements in ball tracking and occipital alpha-band activity. Occipital alpha-band activity has been linked to selective attention and spatially-mapped inhibitions of visual brain activity. We propose that when people have a more accurate predictive model of the environment, they can more easily parse what is relevant, allowing them to better target irrelevant positions for suppression—resulting in both better predictive performance and in neural markers of inhibited information processing.

Music influences vividness and content of imagined journeys in a directed visual imagery task

Directed, intentional imagination is pivotal for self-regulation in the form of escapism and therapies for a wide variety of mental health conditions, such anxiety and stress disorders, as well as phobias. Clinical application in particular benefits from increasing our understanding of imagination, as well as non-invasive means of influencing it. To investigate imagination, this study draws from the prior observation that music can influence the imagined content during non-directed mind-wandering, as well as the finding that relative orientation within time and space is retained in imagination. One hundred participants performed a directed imagination task that required watching a video of a figure travelling towards a barely visible landmark, and then closing their eyes and imagining a continuation of the journey. During each imagined journey, participants either listened to music or silence. After the imagined journeys, participants reported vividness, the imagined time passed and distance travelled, as well as the imagined content. Bayesian mixed effects models reveal strong evidence that vividness, sentiment, as well imagined time passed and distances travelled, are influenced by the music, and show that aspects of these effects can be modelled through features such as tempo. The results highlight music's potential to support therapies such as Exposure Therapy and Imagery Rescripting, which deploy directed imagination as a clinical tool.

Imagining a Personalized Scenario Selectively Increases Perceived Risk of Viral Transmission for Older Adults

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a serious and prolonged public-health emergency. Older adults have been at substantially greater risk of hospitalization, ICU admission, and death due to COVID-19; as of February 2021, over 81% of COVID-19-related deaths in the U.S. occurred for people over the age of 65^1,2. Converging evidence from around the world suggests that age is the greatest risk factor for severe COVID-19 illness and for the experience of adverse health outcomes^3,4. Therefore, effectively communicating health-related risk information requires tailoring interventions to older adults' needs⁵. Using a novel informational intervention with a nationally-representative sample of 546 U.S. residents, we found that older adults reported increased perceived risk of COVID-19 transmission after imagining a personalized scenario with social consequences. Although older adults tended to forget numerical information over time, the personalized simulations elicited increases in perceived risk that persisted over a 1-3 week delay. Overall, our results bear broad implications for communicating information about health risks to older adults, and they suggest new strategies to combat annual influenza outbreaks.

Prospective Memory and Positivity Bias in the COVID-19 Health Crisis: The Effects of Aging

This study aimed to determine whether the observed tendency to remember more positive than negative past events (positivity phenomena) also appears when recalling hypothetical events about the future. In this study, young, middle-aged, and older adults were presented with 28 statements about the future associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, half positive and half negative. In addition, half of these statements were endowed with personal implications while the other half had a more social connotations. Participants rated their agreement/disagreement with each statement and, after a distraction task, they recalled as many statements as possible. There was no difference in the agreement ratings between the three age groups, but the participants agreed with positive statements more than with negative ones and they identified more with statements of social content than of personal content. The younger and older individuals recalled more statements than the middle-aged people. More importantly, older participants recalled more positive than negative statements (positivity effect), and showed a greater tendency to turn negative statements into more positive or neutral ones (positivity bias). These findings showed that the positivity effect occurs in even such complex and situations as the present pandemic, especially in older adults. The results are discussed by reference to the notion of commission errors and false memories resulting from the activation of cognitive biases.

Socially Induced Negative Emotions Elicit Neural Activity in the Mentalizing Network in a Subsequent Inhibitory Task

Despite the growing emphasis on embedding interactive social paradigms in the field of cognitive and affective neuroscience, the impact of socially induced emotions on cognition remains widely unknown. The aim of the present study was to fill this gap by testing whether facial stimuli whose emotional valence was acquired through social learning in an economic trust game may influence cognitive performance in a subsequent stop-signal task. The study was designed as a conceptual replication of previous event-related potential experiments, extending them to more naturalistic settings. We hypothesized that response inhibition to briefly presented faces of negative and positive game partners would be enhanced on the behavioral and neural levels as compared to trials with a neutral player. The results revealed that the trust game was an effective paradigm for the induction of differently valenced emotions towards players; however, behavioral inhibitory performance was comparable in all stop-signal conditions. On the neural level, we found decreased P3 amplitude in negative trials due to significantly stronger activation in the right frontoparietal control network, which is involved in theory-of-mind operations and underlies social abilities in humans, especially memory-guided inference of others' mental states. Our findings make an important contribution to the cognition-emotion literature by showing that social interactions that take place during an economic game may influence brain activity within the mentalizing network in a subsequent cognitive task.

Prospective mental imagery in depression: Impact on reward processing and reward-motivated behaviour

Background

Mental imagery has long been part of cognitive behavioural therapies. More recently, a resurgence of interest has emerged for prospective mental imagery, i.e. future-directed imagery-based thought, and its relation to reward processing, motivation and behaviour in the context of depression.

Method

We conducted a selective review on the role of prospective mental imagery and its impact on reward processing and reward-motivated behaviour in depression.

Results

Based on the current literature, we propose a conceptual mechanistic model of prospective mental imagery. Prospective mental imagery of engaging in positive activities can increase reward anticipation and reward motivation, which can transfer to increased engagement in reward-motivated behaviour and more experiences of reward, thereby decreasing depressive symptoms. We suggest directions for future research using multimodal assessments to measure the impact of prospective mental imagery from its basic functioning in the lab to real-world and clinical implementation.

Conclusion

Prospective mental imagery has the potential to improve treatment for depression where the aim is to increase reward-motivated behaviours. Future research should investigate how exactly and for whom prospective mental imagery works.

This review provides a selected update of the literature on prospective mental imagery.

Prospective mental imagery might decrease depression via reward processing and reward-motivated behaviours.

Suggestions for future research to investigate these hypotheses are provided.

Effects of Mental Imagery on Prospective Memory: A Process Analysis in Individuals with Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

INTRODUCTION

Prospective memory (PM) is a multiphasic cognitive function important for autonomy and functional independence but is easily disrupted by pathological aging processes. Through cognitive simulation of perceptual experiences, mental imagery could be an effective compensatory strategy to enhance PM performance. Nevertheless, relevant research in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) has been limited, and the underlying mechanism of the therapeutic effect has not been sufficiently elucidated. The present study aimed to examine complex PM performances and the effect of mental imagery on each phase in older adults with MCI and to investigate the underlying cognitive mechanism from a process perspective.

METHODS

Twenty-eight MCI and 32 normal aging controls completed a seminaturalistic PM task, in addition to a series of neuropsychological tests. Participants from each group were randomly assigned to a mental imagery condition or a standard repeated encoding condition before performing the PM task. Four indices were used to measure performance in the intention formation, intention retention, intention initiation, and intention execution phases of PM. Performances in each phase was compared between the 2 diagnostic groups and the 2 instruction conditions.

RESULTS

The MCI group performed worse than the normal aging group in the intention formation and intention retention phases. The participants in the mental imagery condition performed significantly better than those in the standard condition during the intention formation, intention retention, and intention execution phases, regardless of the diagnostic group. Moreover, there was a significant interaction between the group and condition during intention retention, showing that people with MCI benefited even more from mental imagery than normal aging in this phase. Performance in the intention retention phase predicted performance in the intention initiation and intention execution phases.

DISCUSSION

PM deficits in MCI mainly manifest during planning and retaining intentions. Mental imagery was able to promote performance in all but the initiation phase, although a trend for improvement was observed in this phase. The effects of mental imagery may be exerted in the intention retention phase by strengthening the PM cue-action bond, thereby facilitating the probability of intention initiation and bolstering fidelity to the original plan during intention execution.

The Psychological Pathway to Suicide Attempts: A Strategy of Control Without Awareness

Objectives

This paper aims to identify potential areas for refinement in existing theoretical models of suicide, and introduce a new integrative theoretical framework for understanding suicide, that could inform such refinements.

Methods

Literature on existing theoretical models of suicide and how they contribute to understanding psychological processes involved in suicide was evaluated in a narrative review. This involved identifying psychological processes associated with suicide. Current understanding of these processes is discussed, and suggestions for integration of the existing literature are offered.

Results

Existing approaches to understanding suicide have advanced the current knowledge of suicide in various ways. They have guided valuable research in the following areas: motivations for suicide and the psychological distress which influences suicide attempts; ambivalence about suicide; suicidal individuals’ focus of attention; and ways in which individuals who contemplate suicide differ from individuals who attempt suicide. We outline a new theoretical framework as a means to integrating all of these concepts into the three principles of control, conflict, and awareness. Within this framework, suicide is regarded as occurring due to a long standing conflict between an individual’s personal goals, culminating in an episode of acute loss of control. The new framework posits that the individual then strives to regain control through the means of suicide because of a narrowed awareness of consequences of their actions on other valued goals. This psychological mechanism of limited awareness is posited to be the common pathway by which individuals make a suicide attempt, regardless of which risk factors are present.

Conclusion

This article introduces a theoretical framework that generates several hypotheses for future research, and focuses on psychological processes occurring during immediate crisis. One of the key hypotheses resulting from our predictions on how individuals progress from contemplating to attempting suicide will be tested in an ongoing program of research: Individuals who attempt suicide have a significantly reduced awareness of consequences of suicide, which would negatively impact on their important life goals, values, principles, or ideals, compared to individuals who contemplate suicide. Therapy guided by the new framework may be more flexible, immediate, and client-focused than other therapies for suicidal individuals.

The default mode network: where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world

The default mode network (DMN) is classically considered an 'intrinsic' system, specializing in internally oriented cognitive processes such as daydreaming, reminiscing and future planning. In this Perspective, we suggest that the DMN is an active and dynamic 'sense-making' network that integrates incoming extrinsic information with prior intrinsic information to form rich, context-dependent models of situations as they unfold over time. We review studies that relied on naturalistic stimuli, such as stories and movies, to demonstrate how an individual's DMN neural responses are influenced both by external information accumulated as events unfold over time and by the individual's idiosyncratic past memories and knowledge. The integration of extrinsic and intrinsic information over long timescales provides a space for negotiating a shared neural code, which is necessary for establishing shared meaning, shared communication tools, shared narratives and, above all, shared communities and social networks.

Circadian Responses to Light-Flash Exposure: Conceptualization and New Data Guiding Future Directions

A growing number of studies document circadian phase-shifting after exposure to millisecond light flashes. When strung together by intervening periods of darkness, these stimuli evoke pacemaker responses rivaling or outmatching those created by steady luminance, suggesting that the circadian system's relationship to light can be contextualized outside the principle of simple dose-dependence. In the current review, we present a brief chronology of this work. We then develop a conceptual model around it that attempts to relate the circadian effects of flashes to a natural integrative process the pacemaker uses to intermittently sample the photic information available at dawn and dusk. Presumably, these snapshots are employed as building blocks in the construction of a coherent representation of twilight the pacemaker consults to orient the next day's physiology (in that way, flash-resetting of pacemaker rhythms might be less an example of a circadian visual illusion and more an example of the kinds of gestalt inferences that the image-forming system routinely makes when identifying objects within the visual field; i.e., closure). We conclude our review with a discussion on the role of cones in the pacemaker's twilight predictions, providing new electrophysiological data suggesting that classical photoreceptors—but not melanopsin—are necessary for millisecond, intermediate-intensity flash responses in ipRGCs (intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells). Future investigations are necessary to confirm this “Cone Sentinel Model” of circadian flash-integration and twilight-prediction, and to further define the contribution of cones vs. rods in transducing pacemaker flash signals.

Hippocampus Guides Adaptive Learning during Dynamic Social Interactions

How do we evaluate whether someone will make a good friend or collaborative peer? A hallmark of human cognition is the ability to make adaptive decisions based on information garnered from limited prior experiences. Using an interactive social task measuring adaptive choice (deciding who to reengage or avoid) in male and female participants, we find the hippocampus supports value-based social choices following single-shot learning. These adaptive choices elicited a suppression signal in the hippocampus, revealing sensitivity for the subjective perception of a person and how well they treat you during choice. The extent to which the hippocampus was suppressed was associated with flexibly interacting with prior generous individuals and avoiding selfish individuals. Further, we found that hippocampal signals during decision-making were related to subsequent memory for a person and the offer they made before. Consistent with the hippocampus leveraging previously executed choices to solidify a reliable neural signature for future adaptive behavior, we also observed a later hippocampal enhancement. These findings highlight the hippocampus playing a multifaceted role in socially adaptive learning.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Adaptively navigating social interactions requires an integration of prior experiences with information gleaned from the current environment. While most research has focused on striatal-based feedback learning, open questions remain regarding the role of hippocampal-based episodic memory systems. Here, we show that during social decisions based on prior experience, hippocampal suppression signals were sensitive to adaptive choice, while hippocampal enhancements was related to subsequent memory for the original social interaction. These findings highlight the hippocampus playing a multifaceted role in socially adaptive learning.

Comparing the phenomenological qualities of stimulus-independent thought, stimulus-dependent thought and dreams using experience sampling

Humans spend a considerable portion of their lives engaged in 'stimulus-independent thoughts' (SIT), or mental activity that occurs independently of input from the immediate external environment. Although such SITs are, by definition, different from thoughts that are driven by stimuli in one's external environment (i.e. stimulus-dependent thoughts; SDTs), at times, the phenomenology of these two types of thought appears to be deceptively similar. But how similar are they? We address this question by comparing the content of two types of SIT (dreaming and waking SITs) with the content of SDTs. In this 7 day, smartphone-based experience-sampling procedure, participants were intermittently probed during the day and night to indicate whether their current thoughts were stimulus dependent or stimulus independent. They then responded to content-based items indexing the qualitative aspects of their experience (e.g. My thoughts were jumping from topic to topic). Results indicate substantial distinctiveness between these three types of thought: significant differences between at least two of the three mental states were found across every measured variable. Implications are discussed. This article is part of the theme issue 'Offline perception: voluntary and spontaneous perceptual experiences without matching external stimulation'.

The neural basis underlying the relation between the action identification level and delay discounting: The medial and orbital frontal cortex functional connectivity with the precuneus

Previous studies have elucidated that action identification level brings ubiquitous effects in human life. The higher identification level is widely associated with future-oriented perspective, goal-directed actions, less impulsivity and so forth. However, little is known about how it relates to delay discounting. To address this issue, we sought to investigate the neural underpinning to understand their relations using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) approaches. The behavioral results revealed that higher identification level was correlated with less discounting rate. The VBM results showed that gray matter (GM) volumes in left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), left medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and right superior frontal gyrus (SFG) were positively correlated with action identification level. The RSFC results found that action identification level was positively associated with the functional connectivity between left OFC-left precuneus, and left mPFC-right precuneus respectively. Moreover, the structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that the association between the identification level and delay discounting was completely mediated by coupling of combined left OFC-left precuneus and left mPFC-right precuneus. These findings suggested that the functional communications within these brain regions in valuation and episodic prospection may account for the relationship between action identification level and delay discounting. The results enhanced our understanding of their relations from neural basis.

Cognitive mechanisms of episodic simulation in psychiatric populations

Episodic simulation is the construction of a mental representation of a specific autobiographical future event. Episodic simulation has increasingly been studied in psychiatric populations. Here we 1) review evidence indicating that episodic simulation is compromised in patients with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and PTSD; and 2) consider several potential cognitive mechanisms of episodic simulation in psychiatric populations: episodic retrieval, scene construction, mental imagery, components of the CaRFAX model (i.e., capture and rumination, functional avoidance, and executive functioning), and narrative style. We evaluate evidence regarding these mechanisms across psychiatric populations, and identify areas of future research. Understanding the factors that contribute to episodic simulation impairment in psychiatric populations may lead to targeted and effective treatment approaches.

Clusters of nonverbal behavior differentiate truths and lies about future malicious intent in checkpoint screening interviews

Recent research has shown that nonverbal behavior (NVB) assessed across multiple channels can differentiate truthtellers from liars. No study, however, has examined whether or not multiple NVBs can differentiate truths from lies about intent regarding future malicious behavior, or across multiple cultural/ethnic groups. We address this gap by examining truths and lies about intent to commit a malicious act in the future in brief, checkpoint-type security screening interviews. Data from four NVB channels producing twenty-one observable NVBs were coded and analyzed using different analytic strategies. Clusters of NVB were found to differentiate truthtellers from liars at statistically significant levels, and substantially beyond the ability of human observers. The findings showed that clusters of NVB can differentiate truthtellers from liars even in brief, checkpoint-type interviews.

Neural signatures underlying deliberation in human foraging decisions

Humans have a remarkable capacity to mentally project themselves far ahead in time. This ability, which entails the mental simulation of events, is thought to be fundamental to deliberative decision making, as it allows us to search through and evaluate possible choices. Many decisions that humans make are foraging decisions, in which one must decide whether an available offer is worth taking, when compared to unknown future possibilities (i.e., the background). Using a translational decision-making paradigm designed to reveal decision preferences in rats, we found that humans engaged in deliberation when making foraging decisions. A key feature of this task is that preferences (and thus, value) are revealed as a function of serial choices. Like rats, humans also took longer to respond when faced with difficult decisions near their preference boundary, which was associated with prefrontal and hippocampal activation, exemplifying cross-species parallels in deliberation. Furthermore, we found that voxels within the visual cortices encoded neural representations of the available possibilities specifically following regret-inducing experiences, in which the subject had previously rejected a good offer only to encounter a low-valued offer on the subsequent trial.

Common and distinct neural systems support the generation retrieval phase of autobiographical memory and personal problem solving

Prior research has documented engagement of a common 'core' retrieval network during autobiographical memory retrieval and higher-order prospective tasks, such as personal problem solving. This neural overlap has overwhelmingly been documented in the context of the 'elaboration phase' of retrieval, when a single mental event is simulated in detail . However, recollective and prospective tasks are often associated with generic cues, which require the retrieval and consideration of multiple conceptually-related events. This initial 'generation phase' of retrieval has received comparably little attention in the literature, leaving open questions as to how and when autobiographical memory and prospective tasks overlap within the brain. Here, we compare and contrast neural activity between autobiographical memory retrieval and personal problem solving with a focus on the initial generation phase of retrieval. In the MRI scanner, young adults completed both an autobiographical memory and a personal problem solving task. Each task consisted of a generation phase, which required participants to generate multiple past personal events or problem solutions to a given cue and a subsequent elaboration phase, where a single memory or solution was simulated in detail. A multivariate Partial Least Squares analysis revealed patterns of neural overlap between memory and problem solving during the generation phase that were distinct from the elaboration phase. Among regions commonly recruited during the generation phase was the anterior hippocampus, a structure involved in initiating mental construction and integrating concepts. Subsequent analyses demonstrated that the anterior hippocampus interacted with distinct cortical regions as a function of task, in particular the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Together, these data provide novel evidence that neural overlap between autobiographical memory and personal problem solving does not occur solely in the context of detailed simulation but, instead, is driven by common retrieval demands.

Examining the limits of Memory-Guided Planning in 3- and 4-year olds

Stored memories may be drawn upon when accomplishing goals. In two experiments, we investigated limits on the ability to use episodic memories to support planning in 3- and 4-year-old children. We designed a new memory-guided planning task that required children to both retrieve memories and apply those memories to accomplish multiple, nested goals. We manipulated the difficulty of the task by varying the number of steps required to achieve the goals, and examined the impact of this manipulation on both memory retrieval and planning. We found that, overall, 4-year-olds outperformed 3-year-olds, but as task difficulty increased, all children made more errors. Analysis of these errors suggested that retrieval and planning processes might impose separate limits on memory-guided planning in early childhood, but that these limits may ease across early childhood.

Regulating food craving: From mechanisms to interventions

Craving, defined here as a strong desire to eat, is a common experience that drives behavior. Here we discuss the concept of craving from historical, physiological, and clinical perspectives, and review work investigating the effects of cue reactivity and cue-induced craving on eating and weight outcomes, as well as underlying neural mechanisms. We also highlight the significance of cue reactivity and craving in the context of our "toxic food environment" and the obesity epidemic. We then summarize our work developing the Regulation of Craving (ROC) task, used to test the causal effects of cognitive strategies on craving for food and drugs as well as the underlying neural mechanisms of such regulation. Next, we review our recent development of a novel ROC-based intervention that trains individuals to use cognitive strategies to regulate craving, with promising effects on subsequent food choice and caloric consumption. We end by discussing future directions for this important line of work.