Inducing positive involuntary mental imagery in everyday life: an experimental investigation

On second thoughts: Testing the underlying mechanisms of spontaneous future thought

The human capacity to imagine possible future events unintentionally, with minimal cognitive effort, is termed spontaneous future thought (SFT). This paper addresses an important theoretical question for cognitive science: What are the possible cognitive mechanisms underlying such SFT experiences? We contrasted three hypotheses present in the literature: the online construction hypothesis, the recasting hypothesis, and the memories of future thoughts hypothesis. Study 1 (N = 41) used novel subjective ratings which challenged the recasting mechanism: SFTs were mostly rated as dissimilar to autobiographical memories, suggesting they are not simply past experiences 'recast' as future events. Study 2 (N = 90) used a novel experimental paradigm, comparing effects of voluntary episodic future constructions and non-personal narratives upon subsequent spontaneous thought sampling. Results suggested that voluntary future constructions remain accessible to spontaneous retrieval, supporting the memories of future thoughts hypothesis. This finding, and other data presented across the two studies, still indicates a role for online construction processes in SFT, but further empirical work is needed to clarify how and when constructive processes are engaged in SFT. Taken together, these two studies represent initial efforts to elucidate the mechanisms underlying SFT, providing the first proof-of-principle that deliberately envisioned future events can reappear, without intention, in consciousness at some later time, and further supporting the dual process account of future thinking. These methods and findings provide a firm basis for subsequent experimental and longitudinal research on SFT.

Emotional mental imagery generation during spontaneous future thinking: relationship with optimism and negative mood

Optimism is known to buffer against negative mood. Thus, understanding the factors that contribute to individual variation in optimism may inform interventions for mood disorders. Preliminary evidence suggests that the generation of mental imagery-based representations of positive relative to negative future scenarios is related to optimism. This study investigated the hypothesis that an elevated tendency to generate positive relative to negative mental imagery during spontaneous future thinking would be associated with reduced negative mood via its relationship to higher optimism. Participants (N = 44) with varied levels of naturally occurring negative mood reported current levels of optimism and the real-time occurrence and characteristics of spontaneous thoughts during a sustained attention computer task. Consistent with hypotheses, higher optimism statistically mediated the relationship between a higher proportional frequency of positive relative to negative mental imagery during spontaneous future thinking and lower negative mood. Further, the relationship between emotional mental imagery and optimism was found for future, but not past, thinking, nor for verbal future or past thinking. Thus, a greater tendency to generate positive rather than negative imagery-based mental representations when spontaneously thinking about the future may influence how optimistic one feels, which in turn may influence one's experience of negative mood.