Uncertainty salience reduces the accessibility of episodic future thoughts.

We live in uncertain times and how this pervasive sense of uncertainty affects our ability to think about the future remains largely unexplored. This study aims to investigate the effects of uncertainty salience on episodic future thinking-the ability to mentally represent specific future events. Experiment 1 assessed the impact of uncertainty on the accessibility of episodic future thoughts using an event fluency task. Participants were randomly assigned to either an uncertainty induction or control condition, and then were asked to imagine as many future events as possible that could happen in different time periods. The results showed that participants in the uncertainty condition produced fewer events, suggesting that uncertainty salience reduced the accessibility of episodic future thoughts. Experiment 2 investigated in further detail the mechanisms of production of episodic future thoughts that are affected by uncertainty. The results showed that uncertainty primarily reduced the accessibility of previously formed future thoughts (i.e., memories of the future) rather than affecting the ability to generatively think about the future and construct events. These findings shed new light on the impact of uncertainty on episodic future thinking, paving the way to further investigation into its implications for decision-making and future-oriented behavior.

Working memory capacity for continuous events: The root of temporal compression in episodic memory?

Remembering the unfolding of past episodes usually takes less time than their actual duration. In this study, we evaluated whether such temporal compression emerges when continuous events are too long to be fully held in working memory. To do so, we asked 90 young adults to watch and mentally replay video clips showing people performing a continuous action (e.g., turning a car jack) that lasted 3, 6, 9, 12, or 15 s. For each clip, participants had to carefully watch the event and then to mentally replay it as accurately and precisely as possible. Results showed that mental replay durations increased with event duration but in a non-linear manner: they were close to the actual event duration for short videos (3-9 s), but significantly smaller for longer videos (12 and 15 s). These results suggest that working memory is temporally limited in its capacity to represent continuous events, which could in part explain why the unfolding of events is temporally compressed in episodic memory.

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.

Corrigendum: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial of the RASPERA project: recalling and anticipating specific positive events to boost resilience in adolescents.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1216988.].

Corrigendum: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial of the RASPERA project: recalling and anticipating specific positive events to boost resilience in adolescents.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1216988.].

The potential of Future Event Specificity Training (FEST) to decrease anhedonia and dampening of positive emotions: A randomised controlled trial.

Impaired episodic future thinking (EFT), as reflected in reduced specificity, low levels of detail and less use of mental imagery, has been associated with depressive symptomatology. The beneficial impact of Future Event Specificity Training (FEST) on impaired EFT has recently been demonstrated, as well as on anhedonia, the core symptom of depression reflecting low positive affect. The current study aimed to replicate these previous findings. In addition, this study is the first to examine the potential of FEST to reduce engagement in dampening, a maladaptive response style characterised by reducing the intensity and/or frequency of positive emotional states, which is linked to depressive symptoms and anhedonia. An RCT (FEST vs. waitlist control) was conducted in a large sample of Dutch-speaking undergraduate students (N = 155). In line with prior research, FEST resulted in significant improvements in EFT features. However, likely related to limited room for change detection, no significant changes were found in anhedonia and dampening. In the light of the positive impact of FEST on several EFT features, future studies should address methodological issues to create optimal conditions for potential change detection. Finally, further examination of the proposed theoretical change mechanisms aimed to reduce anhedonia and dampening is warranted.

The effects of age on objective and subjective recollection after visiting a virtual apartment.

While aging has been associated with decreased retrieval of episodic memory details, subjective ratings about memory quality seem to remain stable. This suggests that subjective memory judgments are based on different information according to age. Here, we tested the hypothesis that older people would rather base their subjective judgments on the retrieval of personal elements (such as emotions and thoughts), whereas younger people would rather base their judgments on the retrieval of event-related elements (such as time, place, and perceptual details). Sixty participants (20 to 79 years old) performed eight actions in a virtual apartment and were then asked to verbally recall each action with a maximum of associated elements and to rate the subjective quality of their memories. The elements reported were classified into "person-related" and "event-related" categories. Executive functions, memory performance on traditional memory tasks, and subjects' perception of memory functioning were also evaluated. Results revealed that aging was associated with reduced retrieval of event-related elements, which was explained by decreasing executive resources. However, age did not affect the retrieval of person-related elements, and the subjective memory judgments of older people were not based on these elements to a greater extent than those of younger people. Finally, our results highlight the value of virtual reality (VR) in memory evaluations since subjects' perception of memory functioning was associated with their performance in the VR task but not in traditional memory tasks.

Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial of the RASPERA project: recalling and anticipating specific positive events to boost resilience in adolescents.

Background: Many stress-related mental health problems, like depression and anxiety, emerge during adolescence, with some recent studies suggesting numbers are increasing. One possible way to reduce adolescents' vulnerability to stress-related mental health problems is to increase their resilience by training them in recalling specific positive memories and anticipating specific positive future events. Therefore, an innovative combi-training (called Positive Events Training; PET) was developed, focusing on the enhancement of the specificity of both past and future positive autobiographical events in adolescents. Its effects on adolescents' resilience and mental wellbeing will be examined. Methods: A cluster randomized controlled trial with a 2 (condition) × 3 (time-point) factorial design was conducted. Classes of adolescents were randomized to either a PET program (intervention) or a CREAtive writing Training (CREAT) program (active control). Both trainings consisted of four sessions of 50 min (one session, weekly, for four consecutive weeks) and were delivered in schools. Before (pre-training, T1), immediately after (post-training, T2), and 2 months after the training (follow-up, T3), participants completed a series of self-report questionnaires. Primary outcomes are resilience and mental wellbeing. Secondary outcomes are positive affect, positive affect regulation and anhedonia. CONSORT criteria for conducting and reporting RCTs will be used. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval was obtained from the Social and Societal Ethics Committee (SMEC) and the study has been preregistered on Open Science Framework (OSF) and ClinicalTrials.gov (Trial registration number: NCT05757180). We plan to develop a free, online, web-based self-directed PET protocol for teachers if the study provides evidence for the effectiveness of the PET program in increasing adolescents' resilience and mental wellbeing, so teachers can deliver the program to future students without the need of professional external trainers.

Effects of past and future autobiographical thinking on the working self-concept.

While the role of autobiographical memory in self-representation is well established, the identity function of future thinking has received much less attention. Yet, most people commonly imagine future events that convey meaningful information about the person they wish or expect to become. In three experiments, we assessed the extent to which thinking about such self-defining future events influences the current content of self-representation (i.e., the working self-concept). Participants were asked to think about either a past or future self-defining event, or a control topic, before describing aspects of their identity in the form of "I am" statements (Experiments 1 and 3) or completing scales assessing self-related dimensions (Experiments 2 and 3). We found that thinking about a future self-defining event led participants to conceptualise themselves more in terms of their psychological traits, as did thinking about a past self-defining event. Furthermore, thinking about a future self-defining event increased the sense of present-future self-continuity, whereas thinking about a past self-defining event increased the sense of past-present self-continuity. These results suggest that self-representations are fuelled not only by autobiographical memories, but also by projections into the future.

Time processing in neurological and psychiatric conditions.

A central question in understanding cognition and pathology-related cognitive changes is how we process time. However, time processing difficulties across several neurological and psychiatric conditions remain seldom investigated. The aim of this review is to develop a unifying taxonomy of time processing, and a neuropsychological perspective on temporal difficulties. Four main temporal judgments are discussed: duration processing, simultaneity and synchrony, passage of time, and mental time travel. We present an integrated theoretical framework of timing difficulties across psychiatric and neurological conditions based on selected patient populations. This framework provides new mechanistic insights on both (a) the processes involved in each temporal judgement, and (b) temporal difficulties across pathologies. By identifying underlying transdiagnostic time-processing mechanisms, this framework opens fruitful avenues for future research.

The role of depressive symptoms in the interplay between aging and temporal processing.

Temporal processing, the ability to mentally represent and process the dynamical unfolding of events over time, is a fundamental feature of cognition that evolves with advancing age. Aging has indeed been associated with slower and more variable performance in timing tasks. However, the role of depressive symptoms in age-related changes in temporal processing remains to be investigated. Therefore, the present work aims to shed light on the link between temporal processing and depressive symptoms, which are frequent with advancing age. We relied on the multicentric "Blursday Project" database, providing measures of temporal processing together with questionnaires investigating psychological wellbeing. Results reveal that aging influences several timing abilities, from the reproduction of short time intervals to verbal estimations of longer temporal distances. Furthermore, the slowing down of felt passage of time regarding the last few days with age was fully mediated by the intensity of depressive symptoms. Overall, these findings suggest that depressive symptoms may play a pivotal role in age-related temporal processing changes.

Repeated simulation increases belief in the future occurrence of uncertain events.

The feeling that an imagined event will or will not occur in the future - referred to as belief in future occurrence - plays a key role in guiding our decisions and actions. Recent research suggests that this belief may increase with repeated simulation of future events, but the boundary conditions for this effect remain unclear. Considering the key role of autobiographical knowledge in shaping belief in occurrence, we suggest that the effect of repeated simulation only occurs when prior autobiographical knowledge does not clearly support or contradict the occurrence of the imagined event. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the repetition effect for events that were either plausible or implausible due to their coherence or incoherence with autobiographical knowledge (Experiment 1), and for events that initially appeared uncertain because they were not clearly supported or contradicted by autobiographical knowledge (Experiment 2). We found that all types of events became more detailed and took less time to construct after repeated simulation, but belief in their future occurrence increased only for uncertain events; repetition did not influence belief for events already believed or considered implausible. These findings show that the effect of repeated simulation on belief in future occurrence depends on the consistency of imagined events with autobiographical knowledge.

Memory editing: The role of temporal discontinuities in the compression of events in episodic memory editing.

Why does it take less time to remember an event than to experience it? Recent evidence suggests that the dynamic unfolding of events is temporally compressed in memory representations, but the exact nature of this compression mechanism remains unclear. The present study tested two possible mechanisms. First, it could be that memories compress the course of events into a sequence of moments or slices of prior experience, while omitting other segments, akin to edited films that give condensed accounts of events using sequences of separate shots (referred to as the discontinuity hypothesis). Alternatively, it may be that the entire stream of information is represented but is mentally replayed at a faster speed than the original experience (referred to as the acceleration hypothesis). In two experiments, these hypotheses were tested by comparing mental replay times for continuous movies depicting naturalistic events and edited versions of the same movies in which less informative parts were removed to mimic the presumed structure of memory representations according to the discontinuity hypothesis. We found that memories for videos in which less informative segments were replaced by temporal ellipses (Experiment 1) or by black screens of the same duration as removed segments (Experiment 2) were less compressed and contained a higher density of recalled units than did memories for complete videos. These results support the discontinuity hypothesis and suggest that segments of time that are redundant and predictable are omitted in episodic memory, while more informative segments are selectively retained to represent the unfolding of events. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Representational dynamics of memories for real-life events.

The continuous flow of experience that characterizes real-life events is not recorded as such in episodic memory but is condensed as a succession of event segments separated by temporal discontinuities. To unravel the neural basis of this representational structure, we recorded real-life events using wearable camera technology and used fMRI to investigate brain activity during their temporal unfolding in memory. We found that, compared to the representation of static scenes in memory, dynamically unfolding memory representations were associated with greater activation of the posterior medial episodic network. Strikingly, by analyzing the autocorrelation of brain activity patterns at successive time points throughout the retrieval period, we found that this network showed higher temporal dynamics when recalling events that included a higher density of event segments. These results reveal the key role of the posterior medial network in representing the dynamic unfolding of the event segments that constitute real-world memories.

The Blursday database as a resource to study subjective temporalities during COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns triggered worldwide changes in the daily routines of human experience. The Blursday database provides repeated measures of subjective time and related processes from participants in nine countries tested on 14 questionnaires and 15 behavioural tasks during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 2,840 participants completed at least one task, and 439 participants completed all tasks in the first session. The database and all data collection tools are accessible to researchers for studying the effects of social isolation on temporal information processing, time perspective, decision-making, sleep, metacognition, attention, memory, self-perception and mindfulness. Blursday includes quantitative statistics such as sleep patterns, personality traits, psychological well-being and lockdown indices. The database provides quantitative insights on the effects of lockdown (stringency and mobility) and subjective confinement on time perception (duration, passage of time and temporal distances). Perceived isolation affects time perception, and we report an inter-individual central tendency effect in retrospective duration estimation.

Back to the future: A way to increase prosocial behavior.

Previous studies suggest a link between future thinking and prosocial behaviors. However, this association is not fully understood at state and trait level. The present study tested whether a brief future thinking induction promoted helping behavior in an unrelated task. In addition, the relation between mental time travel and prosocial behaviors in daily life was tested with questionnaire data. Forty-eight participants filled in questionnaires and were asked to think about the future for one minute or to name animals for one minute (control condition) before playing the Zurich Prosocial Game (a measure of helping behavior). Results revealed that participants in the future thinking condition helped significantly more than participants in the control condition. Moreover, questionnaire data showed that dispositional and positive orientation toward the future and the past was significantly associated with self-reported prosocial behaviors. The present findings suggest that thinking about the future in general has positive transfer effects on subsequent prosocial behavior and that people who think more about the past or future in a positive way engage more in prosocial behavior.

Reduced calibration between subjective and objective measures of episodic future thinking in alcohol use disorder.

BACKGROUND: A reduced capacity to mentally simulate future scenarios could be of clinical importance in alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying episodic future thinking (EFT) impairment in AUD. METHODS: We tested patients with severe AUD using two measures of EFT: the individual's own subjective experience of their imaginings (phenomenology) and the objective number of details included in imagined events, as assessed by an independent observer (examination). The comparison between the two measures allowed us to investigate the extent to which the subjective and objective characteristics of EFT are calibrated in healthy and AUD participants matched for age, education, and gender. The possible impact of cognitive functioning and disturbed mood on EFT measures was also investigated. RESULTS: In terms of objective details of EFT, patients with AUD (n = 40) generated fewer episodic components and more non-episodic components than control participants (n = 40), even when controlling for cognitive functioning. However, self-ratings of phenomenological characteristics indicated that participants with AUD perceived imagined future events at a similar level of detail as control participants. Additionally, there was a significant correlation between objective and subjective measures in healthy individuals but not in the AUD group. A higher depression score in the AUD group was not associated with the EFT measures. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest a distorted self-assessment of the richness of imagined future events in individuals with AUD. We discuss these apparent limitations in metacognitive abilities and verbal descriptions of imagined events among individuals with AUD and their clinical implications.

I remember it like it was yesterday: Age-related differences in the subjective experience of remembering.

It has been frequently described that older adults subjectively report the vividness of their memories as being as high, or even higher, than young adults, despite poorer objective memory performance. Here, we review studies that examined age-related differences in the subjective experience of memory vividness. By examining vividness calibration and resolution, studies using different types of approaches converge to suggest that older adults overestimate the intensity of their vividness ratings relative to young adults, and that they rely on retrieved memory details to a lesser extent to judge vividness. We discuss potential mechanisms underlying these observations. Inflation of memory vividness with regard to the richness of memory content may stem from age-differences in vividness criterion or scale interpretation and psycho-social factors. The reduced reliance on episodic memory details in older adults may stem from age-related differences in how they monitor these details to make their vividness ratings. Considered together, these findings emphasize the importance of examining age-differences in memory vividness using different analytical methods and they provide valuable evidence that the subjective experience of remembering is more than the reactivation of memory content. In this vein, we recommend that future studies explore the links between memory vividness and other subjective memory scales (e.g., ratings of details or memory confidence) in healthy aging and/or other populations, as it could be used as a window to better characterize the cognitive processes that underpin the subjective assessment of the quality of recollected events.

Slices of the past: how events are temporally compressed in episodic memory.

Remembering everyday events typically takes less time than the actual duration of the retrieved episodes, a phenomenon that has been referred to as the temporal compression of events in episodic memory. Here, we review recent studies that have shed light on how this compression mechanism operates. The evidence suggests that the continuous flow of experience is not represented as such in episodic memory. Instead, the unfolding of events is recalled as a succession of moments or slices of past experience that includes temporal discontinuities-portions of past experience are omitted when remembering. Consequently, the rate of event compression is not constant but depends on the density of recalled segments of past experience.

Memory, Future Thinking, and the Self. In Honour of Martial Van Der Linden.

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