Do future thoughts reflect personal goals? Current concerns and mental time travel into the past and future

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.

Brain decoding of spontaneous thought: Predictive modeling of self-relevance and valence using personal narratives

The contents and dynamics of spontaneous thought are important factors for personality traits and mental health. However, assessing spontaneous thoughts is challenging due to their unconstrained nature, and directing participants' attention to report their thoughts may fundamentally alter them. Here, we aimed to decode two key content dimensions of spontaneous thought-self-relevance and valence-directly from brain activity. To train functional MRI-based predictive models, we used individually generated personal stories as stimuli in a story-reading task to mimic narrative-like spontaneous thoughts (n = 49). We then tested these models on multiple test datasets (total n = 199). The default mode, ventral attention, and frontoparietal networks played key roles in the predictions, with the anterior insula and midcingulate cortex contributing to self-relevance prediction and the left temporoparietal junction and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex contributing to valence prediction. Overall, this study presents brain models of internal thoughts and emotions, highlighting the potential for the brain decoding of spontaneous thought.

Goal characteristics predict the occurrence of goal-related events through belief in future occurrence

While previous studies have highlighted the role of episodic future thinking in goal pursuit, the underlying cognitive mechanisms remain unexplored. Episodic future thinking may promote goal pursuit by shaping the feeling that imagined events will (or will not) happen in the future - referred to as belief in future occurrence. We investigated whether goal self-concordance (Experiment 1) and other goal characteristics identified as influential in goal pursuit (Experiment 2) modulate belief in the future occurrence of goal-related events and predict the actual occurrence of these events. Results showed that goal self-concordance, engagement, and expectancy had an indirect effect on the actual occurrence of events, which was (partially) mediated by belief in future occurrence. The mediating role of belief supports the view that belief in future occurrence when imagining events conveys useful information, allowing us to make informed decisions and undertake adaptive actions in the process of goal pursuit.

On pattern completion, cues and future-oriented cognition

Barzykowski and Moulin's view on involuntary autobiographical memory focuses on automatic activation of representations and inhibitory control mechanisms. We discuss how and when a known neural mechanism - pattern completion - may result in involuntary autobiographical memories, the types of cues that may elicit this phenomenon and consider interactions with future-oriented cognition.

Collective remembering and future forecasting during the COVID-19 pandemic: How the impact of COVID-19 affected the themes and phenomenology of global and national memories across 15 countries

The COVID-19 pandemic created a unique set of circumstances in which to investigate collective memory and future simulations of events reported during the onset of a potentially historic event. Between early April and late June 2020, we asked over 4,000 individuals from 15 countries across four continents to report on remarkable (a) national and (b) global events that (i) had happened since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, and (ii) they expected to happen in the future. Whereas themes of infections, lockdown, and politics dominated global and national past events in most countries, themes of economy, a second wave, and lockdown dominated future events. The themes and phenomenological characteristics of the events differed based on contextual group factors. First, across all conditions, the event themes differed to a small yet significant degree depending on the severity of the pandemic and stringency of governmental response at the national level. Second, participants reported national events as less negative and more vivid than global events, and group differences in emotional valence were largest for future events. This research demonstrates that even during the early stages of the pandemic, themes relating to its onset and course were shared across many countries, thus providing preliminary evidence for the emergence of collective memories of this event as it was occurring. Current findings provide a profile of past and future collective events from the early stages of the ongoing pandemic, and factors accounting for the consistencies and differences in event representations across 15 countries are discussed.

Psychological wellbeing, memories, and future thoughts during the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic led countries to place restrictions on the general public in order to protect their safety. These restrictions, however, may have negative psychological consequences as people are restricted in their social and leisure activities and facing daily life stressors. Investigating the relationship between how people are remembering pandemic events and thinking about their futures is important in order to begin to examine the psychological consequences - cognitive and emotional - of the Covid-19 pandemic. The present study examined how characteristics of past and future thinking relate to psychological wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic. In an online questionnaire study, 904 participants in Germany and the USA recalled and predicted negative and positive events related to the pandemic. Participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring cognitions and psychological symptoms. Participants' current psychological wellbeing related to how they remembered events and thought of their future. Participants reported a greater sense of reliving for past compared to future events. However, future events were more rehearsed than past events. Additionally, the emotional impact of positive and negative events differed for the past and the future. Participants seem to be strongly future oriented during the Covid-19 pandemic, but have a negative view of future events.

Remembering future life goals: Retrospective future thinking affects life goal qualities

Personal goals are important for the construction and organization of episodic future thought. This study examines the impact of two future thinking perspectives on qualities of mental goal representations. Here, 142 participants (M_age = 21.9 years) reported on the content and characteristics of five life goals either retrospectively, imagining goals from the perspective of their 100-year-old self, or prospectively from the perspective of their current self. Results indicate that retrospectively reported life goals relied more on schematized knowledge, were dated to occur later in life, and were perceived as more self-concordant with increasing distance from the present. Independent of condition, more distant goals were rated as more difficult, less likely to occur, and were associated with lower self-efficacy. This study provides the first evidence that the point in life from which you consider your own future affects the qualities of mental goal representations, suggesting that retrospective future thinking serves as a form of psychological distancing.

Effects of inhibitory control capacity and cognitive load on involuntary past and future thoughts: A laboratory study

The present study focused on involuntary thoughts about personal past events (i.e., involuntary autobiographical memories; IAMs), and involuntary thoughts about future events and plans (i.e., involuntary future thoughts; IFTs). The frequency of these involuntary thoughts is influenced by cognitive demands of ongoing activities, but the exact underlying mechanism(s) has yet to be revealed. The present study tested two possible explanations: (1) the special inhibitory mechanism switches on when one is engaged in attentionally demanding activities; (2) different levels of cognitive load interfere with cue-noticing that act as triggers for IAMs and IFTs. We report a study with pre-selected groups of participants that differed in terms of their individual level of inhibitory control capacity (high vs. low), and completed both standard and attentionally demanding versions of a laboratory vigilance task with irrelevant cue-words to trigger IAMs and IFTs, and random thought-probes to measure their frequency. To examine the level of incidental cue-noticing, participants also completed an unexpected cue-recognition task. Despite large differences between groups in inhibitory control capacity, the number of IFTs and IAMs, reported in the attentionally demanding condition, was comparable. In addition, high cognitive load reduced the number of IAMs, but not IFTs. Finally, the recognition of incidental cues encountered in the vigilance task was reduced under high cognitive load condition, indicating that poor cue-noticing may be the main underlying mechanism of cognitive load effect rather than the lack of inhibitory resources needed to suppress involuntary retrieval. This and other possible mechanisms and avenues for future research are discussed.

The role of self-reference and personal goals in the formation of memories of the future

Recent evidence suggests that some simulations of future events are encoded in memory and later recalled as "memories of the future," but the factors that determine the memorability of future simulations remain poorly understood. The current research aimed to test the hypothesis that imagined future events are better memorized when they are integrated in autobiographical knowledge structures. Across two experiments, we found that future events that involved the self were better recalled than future events that involved an acquaintance (Experiment 1), and that future events that were related to personal goals were better recalled than future events that were unrelated to goals (Experiment 2). Although self-reference and personal goals influenced the phenomenological characteristics of future simulations (e.g., their vividness and the clarity of event components), the enhanced recall of self-relevant and goal-relevant simulations was not simply due to these differences in the characteristics of simulations. Taken together, these findings suggest that the integration of simulated events with preexisting autobiographical knowledge is an important determinant of memories of the future.

Spontaneous and deliberate future thinking: a dual process account

In this article, we address an apparent paradox in the literature on mental time travel and mind-wandering: How is it possible that future thinking is both constructive, yet often experienced as occurring spontaneously? We identify and describe two 'routes' whereby episodic future thoughts are brought to consciousness, with each of the 'routes' being associated with separable cognitive processes and functions. Voluntary future thinking relies on controlled, deliberate and slow cognitive processing. The other, termed involuntary or spontaneous future thinking, relies on automatic processes that allows 'fully-fledged' episodic future thoughts to freely come to mind, often triggered by internal or external cues. To unravel the paradox, we propose that the majority of spontaneous future thoughts are 'pre-made' (i.e., each spontaneous future thought is a re-iteration of a previously constructed future event), and therefore based on simple, well-understood, memory processes. We also propose that the pre-made hypothesis explains why spontaneous future thoughts occur rapidly, are similar to involuntary memories, and predominantly about upcoming tasks and goals. We also raise the possibility that spontaneous future thinking is the default mode of imagining the future. This dual process approach complements and extends standard theoretical approaches that emphasise constructive simulation, and outlines novel opportunities for researchers examining voluntary and spontaneous forms of future thinking.

How to project oneself without positive and integrated memories? Exploration of self-defining memories and future projections in bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a disabling disorder with functional impact on everyday life. Recent studies suggest that autobiographical memory impairment may contribute to the maintenance of psychopathology, leading to enduring altered self-construct. Moreover, past personal experiences also support the ability to project oneself into the future to pre-experience an event, this capacity can be modified by psychiatric disorders. Self-defining memories and future projections by accessing highly significant events that are vivid and focused on central goals or enduring concerns can both provide a better understanding of the impact of disorders on self-perception and on the ability to project oneself into the future. Therefore we proposed to explore self-defining memories and future projections in BD patients (n = 25) compared to control participants (n = 25). BD patients' self-defining events were associated with more tension, life-threatening events, and negative emotion. BD patients also reported less integrated past but not less integrated future self-defining events. And their future projections were more closely related to leisure, and associated with positive emotions, compared to controls. For both groups, the future projections were less specific, integrated, and tense than the memories. These results question the self-coherence of patients' identity and should be confirmed to propose appropriate interventions to project oneself adaptively into the future and contribute to a better outcome.

Prepartum mental time travelling: Investigating specificity and content of time travelling and their association with psychological distress

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

The current study compared mental time travelling in a group of first-time pregnant women with that in a group of non-pregnant women. We predicted that specificity of birth-related events would be negatively associated with psychological distress.

METHODS

Fifty-nine pregnant women and 59 controls were assessed twice. Pregnant women were assessed before (Time 1) and after (Time 2) childbirth, controls before and after an identical time period. Time travelling was evaluated under two different conditions, where participants generated memories and future predictions in response to neutral words.

RESULTS

No significant changes in psychological distress were observed over time. At Time 1, pregnant women were more likely to mentally travel to the future, and in general travelled further away from the present. Overall, they generated fewer specific events, which in turn was associated with less worry. The number of birth-related events was negatively associated with worry and positively with positive affect, whereas the number of specific birth-related events was negatively associated with positive affect, and positively associated with both symptoms of psychological distress, negative affect, and worry.

LIMITATIONS

The potential negative effect of specificity should be replicated in future studies, in longitudinal studies or experimentally, in order to address causal relations.

CONCLUSIONS

Pregnancy involves alterations in mental time travel, and specificity in events, recalled or imagined, was associated with more worry within the pregnant group, indicative of a detrimental effect. This goes counter to many previous studies assigning a positive role of specificity and warrants further exploration.

Emotion matters: The influence of valence on episodic future thinking in young and older adults

In young adults, valence not only alters the degree to which future events are imagined in rich episodic detail, but also how memorable these events are later on. For older adults, how valence influences episodic detail generation while imagining future events, or recalling these details at another time, remains unclear. We investigated the effect of valence on the specificity and memorability of episodic future thinking (EFT) in young and older adults. Among young and older adults, negative EFT was accompanied by less episodic detail generation relative to positive and neutral EFT. A similar reduction in episodic specificity for negative EFT was found two days later when participants recalled their previously imagined events. Notably, while older adults generated less episodically specific future thoughts relative to young adults, age did not influence the effect of valence on episodic detail generation at imagination or recollection.

A closer look at the timecourse of mind wandering: Pupillary responses and behaviour

Mind wandering (MW) refers to the shift of attention away from a primary task and/or external environment towards thoughts unrelated to the task. Recent evidence has shown that pupillometry can be used as an objective marker of the onset and maintenance of externally-driven MW episodes. In the present study we aimed to further investigate pupillary changes associated with the onset and duration of self-reported MW episodes. We used a modified version of the joint behavioural-pupillometry paradigm we recently introduced. Participants were asked to perform a monotonous vigilance task which was intermixed with task-irrelevant cue-phrases (visually presented verbal cues); they were instructed to interrupt the task whenever a thought came to mind (self-caught method) and to indicate the trigger of their thought, if any. We found systematic pupil dilation after the presentation of verbal cues reported to have triggered MW, compared with other verbal cues presented during a supposedly on-task period (i.e., the period immediately following the resuming of the task after a self-caught interruption and MW report). These results confirm that pupil diameter is sensitive to the changes associated with the onset of MW and its unfolding over time. Moreover, by computing the latency between the trigger presentation and the task interruption (self-catch), we could also estimate the duration of MW episodes triggered by verbal cues. However, a high variability was found, implying very large inter-event variability, which could not be explained by any of the MW properties we acquired (including: temporal focus, specificity, emotional valence). Our behavioural and pupillometry findings stress the need for objective measures about the temporal unfolding of MW (while most studies focus on arbitrary time-window preceding self-reports of MW).

Functions of spontaneous and voluntary future thinking: evidence from subjective ratings

Future thinking is defined as the ability to withdraw from reality and mentally project oneself into the future. The primary aim of the present study was to examine whether functions of future thoughts differed depending on their mode of elicitation (spontaneous or voluntary) and an attribute of goal-relatedness (selected-goal-related or selected-goal-unrelated). After producing spontaneous and voluntary future thoughts in a laboratory paradigm, participants provided ratings on four proposed functions of future thinking (self, directive, social, and emotional regulation). Findings showed that spontaneous and voluntary future thoughts were rated similarly on all functions except the directive function, which was particularly relevant to spontaneous future thoughts. Future thoughts classed as goal-related (selected-goal-related) were rated higher across all functions, and there was largely no interaction between mode of elicitation and goal-relatedness. A higher proportion of spontaneous future thoughts were selected-goal-related compared with voluntary future thoughts. In general, these results indicate that future thinking has significant roles across affective, behavioural, self and social functions, and supports theoretical views that implicate spontaneous future thought in goal-directed cognition and behaviour.

Zooming In and Out on One's Life: Autobiographical Representations at Multiple Time Scales

The ability to decouple from the present environment and explore other times is a central feature of the human mind. Research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience has shown that the personal past and future is represented at multiple timescales and levels of resolution, from broad lifetime periods that span years to short-time slices of experience that span seconds. Here, I review this evidence and propose a theoretical framework for understanding mental time travel as the capacity to flexibly navigate hierarchical layers of autobiographical representations. On this view, past and future thoughts rely on two main systems-event simulation and autobiographical knowledge-that allow us to represent experiential contents that are decoupled from sensory input and to place these on a personal timeline scaffolded from conceptual knowledge of the content and structure of our life. The neural basis of this cognitive architecture is discussed, emphasizing the possible role of the medial pFC in integrating layers of autobiographical representations in the service of mental time travel.

How imagining personal future scenarios influences affect: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Imagining the future is a fundamental human capacity that occupies a large part of people's waking time and impacts their affective well-being. In this meta-analysis, we examined the effect of (1) positive future imagination and (2) negative future imagination on affect, and (3) compared the affective responses between imagining the future and remembering the past; lastly, we (4) examined potential moderating variables in this regard. We identified 63 experimental studies (N = 6813) from different research areas and combined studies that applied the best possible self imagination task, future worry induction, and episodic future simulation, respectively. Findings yielded that imagining the future has a moderate to strong impact on affect, and it has a stronger influence on affect compared to remembering the past. Relevant moderator variables in each research area were also identified. We discuss the findings for the field of psychology in general and clinical psychology in particular. More elaborate research on personal future imagination seems crucial for the further advancement of clinical applications for mental health complaints. We conclude with recommendations for future research on the impact of future imagination on affective well-being.

Imagining Events Alternative to the Present Can Attenuate Delay Discounting

Previous studies have shown that delay discounting (DD), the tendency to prefer smaller-immediate to larger-delayed rewards, decreases following vivid imagination of future events. Here, we test the hypothesis that imagining complex events alternative to direct (perceptual) experience, whether located in the future, the past, or even the present, would reduce DD. Participants (N = 250) imagined future events (Future condition), remembered past events (Past condition), imagined present events (Present-imagine condition), or reported on the current events (Present-attend condition), and then made a series of intertemporal choices about money and food. Compared to attending to the present, imagining the future reduced DD, but this only held for individuals who claimed vivid pre-experiencing of future events. Importantly, a similar attenuation of DD was found in the Past and Present-imagine conditions, suggesting that a shift in perspective from the perceptual present towards mentally constructed experience can downplay the appraisal of immediate rewards in favor of larger-delayed rewards, regardless of the location of the imagined experience in subjective time.

Predicted and remembered emotion: tomorrow's vividness trumps yesterday's accuracy

People rely on predicted and remembered emotion to guide important decisions. But how much can they trust their mental representations of emotion to be accurate, and how much do they trust them? In this investigation, participants (N = 957) reported their predicted, experienced, and remembered emotional response to the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. They also reported how accurate and vivid they perceived their predictions and memories to be, and the importance of the election. Participants remembered their emotional responses more accurately than they predicted them. But, strikingly, they perceived their predictions to be more accurate than their memories. This perception was explained by the greater importance and vividness of anticipated versus remembered experience. We also assessed whether individuals with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory for personal and public events (N = 33) showed superior ability to predict or remember their emotional responses to events. They did not and, even for this group, predicting emotion was a more intense experience than remembering emotion. These findings reveal asymmetries in the phenomenological experience of predicting and remembering emotion. The vividness of predicted emotion serves as a powerful subjective signal of accuracy even when predictions turn out to be wrong.

Aging and the wandering brain: Age-related differences in the neural correlates of stimulus-independent thoughts

In recent years, several studies have indicated that healthy older adults exhibit a reduction in task-unrelated thoughts compared to young adults. However, much less is known regarding age-related differences in time spent engaging in stimulus-independent thoughts or in their neural correlates in the absence of an ongoing task. In the current study, we collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data while 29 young (mean age = 22y) and 22 older (mean age = 70y) adults underwent experience sampling in the absence of an ongoing task (i.e., at “rest”). Although both age groups reported spending a similar amount of time engaged in stimulus-independent thoughts, older adults rated their thoughts as more present-oriented (rather than atemporal) and more novel. Moreover, controlling for these age-related differences in content, we found that experiencing stimulus-independent thoughts was associated with increased posterior cingulate and left angular gyrus activation across age groups compared to exhibiting an external focus of attention. When experiencing stimulus-independent thoughts, younger adults engaged medial and left lateral prefrontal cortex as well as left superior temporal gyrus to a greater degree than older adults. Taken together, our results suggest that, in the absence of an ongoing task, although young and older adults spend a similar amount of time engaging in stimulus-independent thoughts, the content and neural correlates of these thoughts differ with age.

Why are we not flooded by involuntary thoughts about the past and future? Testing the cognitive inhibition dependency hypothesis

In everyday life, involuntary thoughts about future plans and events occur as often as involuntary thoughts about the past. However, compared to involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs), such episodic involuntary future thoughts (IFTs) have become a focus of study only recently. The aim of the present investigation was to examine why we are not constantly flooded by IFTs and IAMs given that they are often triggered by incidental cues while performing undemanding activities. One possibility is that activated thoughts are suppressed by the inhibitory control mechanism, and therefore depleting inhibitory control should enhance the frequency of both IFTs and IAMs. We report an experiment with a between-subjects design, in which participants in the depleted inhibition condition performed a 60-min high-conflict Stroop task before completing a laboratory vigilance task measuring the frequency of IFTs and IAMs. Participants in the intact inhibition condition performed a version of the Stroop task that did not deplete inhibitory control. To control for physical and mental fatigue resulting from performing the 60-min Stroop tasks in experimental conditions, participants in the control condition completed only the vigilance task. Contrary to predictions, the number of IFTs and IAMs reported during the vigilance task, using the probe-caught method, did not differ across conditions. However, manipulation checks showed that participants' inhibitory resources were reduced in the depleted inhibition condition, and participants were more tired in the experimental than in the control conditions. These initial findings suggest that neither inhibitory control nor physical and mental fatigue affect the frequency of IFTs and IAMs.

Spontaneous future cognition: the past, present and future of an emerging topic

In this Editorial, we discuss the past, present and future of an emerging and fast-developing field-spontaneous future cognition. In tracking the past of this research, the trajectories of research on mind-wandering, episodic future thinking and prospective memory are briefly examined, and their relation with spontaneous future cognition demarcated. Three broad methodological approaches (questionnaire, naturalistic and laboratory) used to study spontaneous future thoughts are described, providing an overview of the field. The present state of this research is represented by a themed analysis of the articles included in this Special Issue. The breadth of studies (covering cognitive mechanisms, developmental stages and psychopathology) have already led to important insights, especially concerning the conditions in which spontaneous future thoughts most commonly arise and who may be predisposed to experiencing them. In the future, greater effort should focus on developing a theoretical account of spontaneous future cognition-this may increase our understanding of how and why spontaneous future thoughts occur. If future research in this area reflects the diversity and depth within this Special Issue, a flourishing of research on spontaneous future cognition will be on the horizon in years or perhaps decades to come.

Cuing both positive and negative episodic foresight reduces delay discounting but does not affect risk-taking

Humans frequently create mental models of the future, allowing outcomes to be inferred in advance of their occurrence. Recent evidence suggests that imagining positive future events reduces delay discounting (the devaluation of reward with time until its receipt), while imagining negative future events may increase it. Here, using a sample of 297 participants, we experimentally assess the effects of cued episodic simulation of positive and negative future scenarios on decision-making in the context of both delay discounting (monetary choice questionnaire) and risk-taking (balloon-analogue risk task). Participants discounted the future less when cued to imagine positive and negative future scenarios than they did when cued to engage in control neutral imagery. There were no effects of experimental condition on risk-taking. Thus, although these results replicate previous findings suggesting episodic future simulation can reduce delay discounting, they indicate that this effect is not dependent on the valence of the thoughts, and does not generalise to all other forms of “impulsive” decision-making. We discuss various interpretations of these results, and suggest avenues for further research on the role of prospection in decision-making.

Inducing spontaneous future thoughts in younger and older adults by priming future-oriented personal goals

In the past 15 years, the study of spontaneous thoughts (i.e., thoughts coming to mind without intention and effort) has received increased attention. Spontaneous future thoughts (SFTs) are particularly important (e.g., in planning), yet difficult to study with regard to age differences. Two main problems arise: (1) lab tasks including word-cues induce more past than future thoughts; (2) younger adults report more spontaneous thoughts than older adults. To improve the elicitation of SFTs, we developed a future-oriented goal-related priming procedure and analyzed the extension of the goal-related priming effect in SFTs to older adults, to examine whether age-related changes in personal goals compromise the elicitation of SFTs. We also controlled for methodological factors that could influence age groups differently (including demand, retrospection, meta-awareness and instruction bias). Twenty-seven younger and 27 older adults performed a low-demand vigilance task including word-cues and were periodically stopped to describe their thoughts. The vigilance task was divided into two parts and, between them, participants performed a future-oriented goal-related priming task. An additional group of 27 younger participants performed the same procedure with a control task based on word counting. We found a significant increase in SFTs after priming in both age groups, but not in the control group, indicating that the priming manipulation was effective. This result suggests that age-related changes in personal goals do not disrupt the relation between personal goals and SFT frequency. The similar pattern of overall spontaneous thought in both age groups is also discussed considering methodological factors.

The tendency for experiencing involuntary future and past mental time travel is robustly related to thought suppression: an exploratory study

Involuntary mental time travel (MTT) refers to projecting oneself into the past or into the future without prior conscious effort. The previous studies have shown high inter-individual variability in the frequency of involuntary MTT, but a few systematic studies exist. In three exploratory studies, we investigated the relation between individual differences in experiencing involuntary past and future MTT, and selected emotional and cognitive processes, with a special focus on thought suppression. Across all three studies, thought suppression emerged as a robust predictor of involuntary MTT above and beyond emotion-related variables, mind-wandering, daydreaming styles, and demographic variables. Findings from Studies 1 and 2 showed that higher thought suppression consistently predicted both more frequent involuntary past and future MTT across an American and a Danish sample, whereas rumination and emotion regulation were less consistently related to involuntary MTT. In Study 3, thought suppression reliably predicted more frequent involuntary MTT, even when controlling for mind-wandering, as well as for positive and negative daydreaming styles, which were all related to greater involuntary MTT. Overall, the individual differences assessed showed similar relationships to the tendency for having past and future involuntary MTT, with the possible exception of daydreaming styles, which appeared more strongly related to future-directed involuntary MTT.

Spontaneous future cognitions: an integrative review

Spontaneous future cognitions refer to mental representations about the future that enter consciousness with no immediately preceding attempt of bringing them to mind. They are studied under different terms in several areas of psychology, but with little interdisciplinary exchange of findings and theoretical developments. Different conceptions of spontaneous future cognition derive from separate literatures and are rarely considered together, leaving their potential conceptual overlaps as well as their unique features unclarified. In this article, I review research on spontaneous future cognitions in relation to mind wandering, involuntary episodic future thoughts, and intrusive future imagery in cravings and clinical disorders. I conclude that more research is needed to clarify the potential functions served by spontaneous future cognitions in everyday life, under which conditions they may become dysfunctional, how they are triggered by situational cues, and how their content may be constrained by motivational factors and beliefs. The burgeoning field of spontaneous future cognitions forms a promising novel approach to the cognitive and motivational regulation of behavior in everyday life.

Conversational Time Travel: Evidence of a Retrospective Bias in Real Life Conversations

We examined mental time travel reflected onto individuals' utterances in real-life conversations using a naturalistic observation method: Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR, a portable audio recorder that periodically and unobtrusively records snippets of ambient sounds and speech). We introduced the term conversational time travel and examined, for the first time, how much individuals talked about their personal past versus personal future in real life. Study 1 included 9,010 sound files collected from 51 American adults who carried the EAR over 1 weekend and were recorded every 9 min for 50 s. Study 2 included 23,103 sound files from 33 young and 48 healthy older adults from Switzerland who carried the EAR for 4 days (2 weekdays and 1 weekend, counterbalanced). 30-s recordings occurred randomly throughout the day. We developed a new coding scheme for conversational time travel: We listened to all sound files and coded each file for whether the participant was talking or not. Those sound files that included participant speech were also coded in terms of their temporal focus (e.g., past, future, present, time-independent) and autobiographical nature (i.e., about the self, about others). We, first, validated our coding scheme using the text analysis tool, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Next, we compared the percentages of past- and future-oriented utterances about the self (to tap onto conversational time travel). Results were consistent across all samples and showed that participants talked about their personal past two to three times as much as their personal future (i.e., retrospective bias). This is in contrast to research showing a prospective bias in thinking behavior, based on self-report and experience-sampling methods. Findings are discussed in relation to the social functions of recalling the personal past (e.g., sharing memories to bond with others, to update each other, to teach, to give advice) and to the directive functions of future-oriented thought (e.g., planning, decision making, goal setting that are more likely to happen privately in the mind). In sum, the retrospective bias in conversational time travel seems to be a functional and universal phenomenon across persons and across real-life situations.

Wanting or having to: The role of goal self-concordance in episodic future thinking

While it is established that goal processing is a central component of episodic future thinking, how personal goals shape future event representations is not fully understood. Here, we explored the influence of the source of motivation underlying goal pursuit. Personal goals differ in their degree of self-concordance, which depends on the primary motives underlying goal pursuit. We distinguished between self-concordant (what one wants to achieve) and non-self-concordant (what one has to achieve) goals. Participants were asked to imagine specific future events associated with each type of goals. We found that self-concordant future events have a privileged phenomenological status: they are associated with a stronger sense of "realness" and of pre-experiencing the future, are more integrated with autobiographical knowledge, and are characterized by more positive and intense emotions. Furthermore, psychological need satisfaction was a characteristic component of self-concordant future thoughts. Implications of these findings for motivation and goal pursuit are discussed.

Absence of age effects on spontaneous past and future thinking in daily life

Previous research on voluntary mental time travel (i.e., deliberately thinking about the past or future) has resulted in negative age effects. In contrast, studies on spontaneous past thoughts (i.e., involuntary autobiographical memories) have reported small or no age effects. The aim of the present research was to investigate the effects of age on the nature and frequency of spontaneous future thoughts in everyday life. In two studies, we examined whether older adults reported spontaneous future thoughts as often as younger adults, and whether these thoughts were predominantly goal-oriented and less dependent on incidental cues than thoughts about the past. In Study 1, young and old participants kept a diary of spontaneous thoughts of upcoming prospective memory tasks and involuntary autobiographical memories for 2 weeks. In Study 2, a 1-day experience sampling method was used to investigate spontaneous and deliberate task-unrelated future and past thoughts, by having young and old participants complete a questionnaire in response to 30 random signals. In both studies, no age effects were found in the frequency of spontaneous future thoughts, which were reported as frequently as thoughts about the past (Study 2) and referred predominantly to upcoming tasks and goals rather than future events or hypothetical events (Study 2). Results concerning the triggers of reported thoughts provide initial support for the idea that representations of future thoughts may be more activated than memories of past events. Taken together, these results have important implications for research on cognitive ageing, mind-wandering, prospective memory and involuntary autobiographical memories.

Space-time interaction: visuo-spatial processing affects the temporal focus of mind wandering

Our understanding of mind wandering (MW) has dramatically increased over the past decade. Studies have shown that in the vast majority of cases, MW is directed to times other than the present, and a bias toward the future has been reported (prospective bias). The processing of time is not independent of the processing of space: humans represent time along a spatial continuum, on a "mental time line" (MTL). In cultures with a left to right reading/writing system, the MTL expands from left to right. Capitalizing on these findings, here we aimed at investigating the effects of visuo-spatial processing on the temporal orientation of spontaneous MW, and specifically we asked whether we could steer the temporal focus of MW towards the past or the future, by experimentally inducing a leftward and a rightward orienting of attention, respectively. To this aim, we experimentally manipulated the spatial orientation demands associated with the focal task in two independent groups, with a leftward orienting of attention (left-pointing arrows, LA group) and a rightward orienting of attention (right-pointing arrows, RA group). We found that the temporal orientation of MW critically depended on the spatial orientation demands of the task: specifically, the proportion of spontaneous past-oriented MW episodes was higher under the induction of a leftward orienting attention (LA group) than under the induction of a rightward orienting attention (RA group). The opposite pattern was found for spontaneous future-oriented MW episodes. Possible mechanisms involved in this effect and their implications for research on MW and spontaneous cognition are discussed.

Towards a new methodological approach: A novel paradigm for covertly inducing and sampling different forms of spontaneous cognition

A wide range of cognitions is generated involuntarily in the human mind daily. We developed a paradigm, which covertly induces and samples spontaneous cognitions in the visual and auditory modalities, focusing on 3 key characteristics: spontaneity, repetition, and emotional valence. Sixty participants watched two visual clips while listening to music and assessed their characteristics. Post-induction, participants closed their eyes for 5 min and then completed a questionnaire, which indirectly samples different forms of spontaneous cognition. Induction was effective in all categories. Results indicated that different forms of spontaneous musical cognitions are experienced as longer in duration and less negative in emotional valence compared to visual cognitions. The findings are discussed in relation to spontaneous cognition methodology and experiences in different modalities. Spontaneous cognitions are multifaceted and not unitary constructs as previously considered and studied, and as such the novel induction and sampling paradigm presents a promising line of research.

Tracking the Dynamics of Mind Wandering: Insights from Pupillometry

Mind wandering (MW) refers to the shift of attention away from a primary task towards thoughts unrelated to the task. Here we show that significant new insight into the dynamics of this process can be gained by using pupillometry. Participants performed a monotonous vigilance task which was intermixed with task-irrelevant verbal cues. At fixed times, we interrupted them and asked what they were thinking about immediately prior to the probe and what had triggered their thought. We observed pupil dilation after the presentation of verbal cues reported to have triggered MW, compared with other verbal cues with similar emotional content. Thus, MW is associated with pupil dilation. We also analysed the pupil-constriction response to the task-stimuli (vertical and horizontal bars, to be categorized as targets and non-targets for the vigilance task), and found that this was unchanged during MW. We conclude that pupil size provides an index of MW, objective and covert and that this may be exploited in further studies to understand whether and how MW affects the processing of sensory stimuli.

Manipulating cues in mind wandering: Verbal cues affect the frequency and the temporal focus of mind wandering

Our understanding of mind wandering (MW) has dramatically increased over the past decade. A key challenge still facing research is the identification of the processes and events that directly cause and control its occurrence. In the present study we sought to shed light on this question, by investigating the effects of verbal cues on the frequency and temporal focus of MW. To this aim, we experimentally manipulated the presence of irrelevant verbal cues during a vigilance task, in two independent groups (Verbal-cues group vs. No-cues group). We found that compared to the No-cues group, the Verbal-cues group reported a higher amount of MW, mostly triggered by the irrelevant cue-words, and a higher proportion of past-oriented MW compared to the other temporal orientations. These results demonstrate that task-irrelevant verbal stimulation increases the frequency of MW and steers its temporal orientation toward the past. Implications for the research on MW are discussed.

Imagining possible selves across time: Characteristics of self-images and episodic thoughts

Thinking about our possible selves can entail thinking about self-related imagined future events. When remembering and imagining, individuals can use both 1st person (field) and 3rd person (observer) perspectives. There is currently a paucity of research examining the visual perspectives of episodic future thoughts that represent possible selves. We hypothesised that temporally distant self-images would elicit more observer perspectives in episodic thoughts than temporally near self-images and current self-images. Utilising a repeated measures design, sixty-eight undergraduate students completed IAM, I Will Be near and I Will Be far conditions (Rathbone, Conway, & Moulin, 2011) to generate self-images and their related episodic thoughts. It was found that episodic qualities were reliably affected by different self-images. Specifically, observer perspective predilections increased with future temporal distance. Findings are discussed in relation to self-continuity with recommended practical applications of visual perspective utilisation for wellbeing.

When the mind wanders: Distinguishing stimulus-dependent from stimulus-independent thoughts during incidental encoding in young and older adults

In recent years, several studies have indicated that healthy older adults exhibit a reduction in mind-wandering compared with young adults. However, relatively little research has examined the extent to which ongoing thoughts in young and older adults are dependent on environmental stimuli. In the current study, we assessed age-related differences in frequency of stimulus-dependent thoughts (SDTs) and stimulus-independent thoughts (SITs) during a slow-paced incidental encoding task. Based on previous research suggesting that older adults rely on external information to a greater extent than young adults, we hypothesized that ongoing thoughts in older adults may be more stimulus-dependent than in young adults. We found that although older adults reported overall fewer thoughts compared to young adults, they exhibited a reduction in proportion of SITs and an increase in proportion of SDTs. In both age groups, SDTs were more frequently about the past compared with SITs, while SITs were more frequently about the future. Finally, the extent to which both young and older adults reported SDTs, but not SITs, at encoding was positively correlated with how often they reported remembering thoughts at retrieval, and SDT frequency was positively correlated with overall performance on the memory task in older adults. Our results provide evidence that ongoing thoughts in older adults may be more dependent on environmental stimuli than young adults, and that these thoughts may impact performance in recognition tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record

Impact of age-relevant goals on future thinking in younger and older adults

This study investigated how personal goals influence age differences in episodic future thinking. Research suggests that personal goals change with age and like autobiographical memory, future thinking is thought to be organised and impacted by personal goals. It was hypothesised that cueing older adults with age-relevant goals should modulate age differences in episodic details and may also influence phenomenological characteristics of imagined scenarios. Healthy younger and older adults completed the Future Thinking Interview [Addis, D. R., Wong, A. T., & Schacter, D. L. (2008). Age-related changes in the episodic simulation of future events. Psychological Science, 19(1), 33-41. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02043.x ] adapted to activate age-appropriate goals. Narratives were scored with an established protocol to obtain objective measures of episodic and semantic details. Subjective features such as emotionality and personal significance showed age differences as a function of goal domain while other features (e.g., vividness) were unaffected. However, consistent with prior reports, older adults produced fewer episodic details than younger adults and this was not modulated by goal domain. The results do not indicate that goal activation affects level of episodic detail. With respect to phenomenological aspects of future thinking, however, younger adults show more sensitivity to goal activation, compared with older adults.

Inducing involuntary and voluntary mental time travel using a laboratory paradigm

Although involuntary past and future mental time travel (MTT) has been examined outside the laboratory in diary studies, MTT has primarily been studied in the context of laboratory studies using voluntary construction tasks. In this study, we adapted and extended a paradigm previously used to elicit involuntary and voluntary memories (Schlagman & Kvavilashvili in Memory & Cognition, 36, 920-932, 2008). Our aim was - for the first time - to examine involuntary and voluntary future MTT under controlled laboratory conditions. The involuntary task involved a monotonous task that included potential cues for involuntary MTT. Temporal direction was manipulated between participants whereas retrieval mode was manipulated within participants. We replicated robust past-future differences, such as the future positivity bias. Additionally, we replicated key voluntary-involuntary differences: Involuntary future representations had similar characteristics as involuntary memories in that they were elicited faster, were more specific, and garnered more emotional impact than their voluntary counterparts. We also found that the future and past involuntary MTT led to both positive and negative mood impact, and that the valence of the impact was associated with the emotional valence of the event. This study advances scientific understanding of involuntary future representations in healthy populations and validates a laboratory paradigm that can be flexibly and systematically utilized to explore different characteristics of voluntary and involuntary MTT, which has not been possible within naturalistic paradigms.

Episodic Future Thinking: Expansion of the Temporal Window in Individuals with Alcohol Dependence

BACKGROUND

Episodic future thinking (EFT) requires an individual to vividly pre-experience a realistic future event. Inspired by previous reports of reducing delay discounting following EFT in other populations, we examined the effects of engaging alcohol-dependent individuals in EFT or episodic recent thinking (ERT; control) to examine its effects on delay discounting and alcohol purchasing.

METHODS

Participants (n = 50) with alcohol dependence were allocated into EFT or ERT groups and asked to generate positive future or recent past events for each of 5 time points. Participants then completed a delay-discounting task, during which event cues were displayed, and a hypothetical alcohol purchase task.

RESULTS

EFT significantly increased valuation of future monetary rewards, while decreasing initial consumption (Q0 ) of alcoholic drinks indicative of lower demand intensity. Two additional findings suggest potential moderators of this effect. EFT more readily influenced individuals with lower Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test scores, and self-reported cue valence differed between groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Together, these results suggest a widening of alcohol-dependent individuals' temporal window following engagement of EFT. While our data suggest that EFT may be moderated by certain susceptibility criteria, exercises such as EFT could be easily adaptable as a potential therapeutic tool for use in rehabilitation programs.

Imagining future events in patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy

OBJECTIVES

Imagining future events, which contain episodic and non-episodic details, has been found to (1) engage the temporal lobes bilaterally and (2) be impaired in patients with bilateral temporal lobe pathology. Here, we examined whether unilateral temporal lobe dysfunction also impairs the ability to generate future events.

DESIGN

Prospective cross-sectional.

METHODS

Twenty patients with a history of unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy [TLE; 10 left (LTLE) and 10 right (RTLE)] and 20 normal control (NC) subjects comparable on age, sex and education completed the Adapted Autobiographical Interview, which required recall of past and generation of future events and distinguished episodic (internal) from non-episodic (external) details. Participants also completed a battery of neuropsychological tests.

RESULTS

Patients with unilateral TLE were significantly impaired in provision of internal details for past and future events, but not in the generation of external details. Examination of detail subcategories revealed that patients with LTLE did exhibit a significant deficit relative to patients with RTLE (and NC) with respect to the generation of perceptual details for both past and future events. Moreover, patients with LTLE generated significantly fewer place details for future events (relative to NC only). The overall number of internal details recalled by patients with LTLE was related to semantic fluency.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study provides the first evidence that unilateral temporal lobe dysfunction is associated with not only impaired recall of past, but also the generation of future episodic details. Clinically, deficits in future thinking may reduce motivation and decision-making, and as such adversely impact behavioural regulation and socialization.

PRACTITIONER POINTS

Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy generate less details when asked to describe past and potential future events, particularly with regard to details involving specific events, places and perceptions. These same patients are aware of their difficulties in this realm, but judge their past memories as similar in vividness and even more personally significant than the memories generated by control participants. The deficits in generation of future episodic details were particularly pronounced in patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy. Verbal semantic fluency was correlated with the ability to generate future scenarios.

Amnesia and future thinking: Exploring the role of memory in the quantity and quality of episodic future thoughts

OBJECTIVES

To examine the impact of memory accessibility on episodic future thinking.

DESIGN

Single-case study of neurological patient HCM and an age-matched comparison group of neurologically Healthy Controls.

METHODS

We administered a full battery of tests assessing general intelligence, memory, and executive functioning. To assess autobiographical memory, the Autobiographical Memory Interview (Kopelman, Wilson, & Baddeley, 1990. The Autobiographical Memory Interview. Bury St. Edmunds, UK: Thames Valley Test Company) was administered. The Past Episodic and Future Episodic sections of Dalla Barba's Confabulation Battery (Dalla Barba, 1993, Cogn. Neuropsychol., 1, 1) and a specifically tailored Mental Time Travel Questionnaire were administered to assess future thinking in HCM and age-matched controls.

RESULTS

HCM presented with a deficit in forming new memories (anterograde amnesia) and recalling events from before the onset of neurological impairment (retrograde amnesia). HCM's autobiographical memory impairments are characterized by a paucity of memories from Recent Life. In comparison with controls, two features of his future thoughts are apparent: Reduced episodic future thinking and outdated content of his episodic future thoughts.

CONCLUSIONS

This article suggests neuropsychologists should look beyond popular conceptualizations of the past-future relation in amnesia via focussing on reduced future thinking. Investigating both the quantity and quality of future thoughts produced by amnesic patients may lead to developments in understanding the complex nature of future thinking disorders resulting from memory impairments.

PRACTITIONER POINTS

We highlight the clinical importance of examining the content of future thoughts in amnesic patients, rather than only its quantitative reduction. We propose an explanation of how quantitative and qualitative aspects of future thinking could be affected by amnesia. This could provide a useful approach to understand clinical cases of impaired prospection.

LIMITATIONS

Systematic group investigations are required to fully examine our hypothesis. Although the current study utilized typical future thinking measures, these may be limited and we highlight the need to develop clinically relevant measures of prospection.