The Role of Past in the Simulation of Autobiographical Future Episodes

2010 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 419-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Gamboz ◽  
Maria A. Brandimonte ◽  
Stefania De Vito
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Delayed Recognition

Human beings’ ability to envisage the future has been recently assumed to rely on the reconstructive nature of episodic memory ( Schacter & Addis, 2007 ). In the present research, young adults mentally reexperienced and preexperienced temporally close and distant autobiographical episodes, and rated their phenomenal characteristics as well as their novelty. Additionally, they performed a delayed recognition task including remember-know judgments on new, old-remember, and old-imagine words. Results showed that past and future temporally close episodes included more phenomenal details than distant episodes, in line with earlier studies. However, future events were occasionally rated as already occurred in the past. Furthermore, in the recognition task, participants falsely attributed old-imagine words to remembered episodes. While partially in line with previous results, these findings call for a more subtle analysis in order to discriminate representations of past episodes from true future events simulations.

scholarly journals Mnemicity vs. Temporality: Distinguishing between components of episodic representations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Mahr
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Orientation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
Episodic Simulation ◽  
The Future ◽  
Event Simulations

Human beings regularly 'mentally travel' to past and future times in memory and imagination. In theory, whether an event is remembered or imagined (its ‘mnemicity’) underspecifies whether it is oriented towards the past or the future (its ‘temporality’). However, it remains unclear to what extent the temporal orientation of such episodic simulations is cognitively represented separately from their status as memories or imagination. To address this question, we investigated whether episodic simulations are more easily distinguishable in memory by virtue of their temporal orientation or their mnemicity. In three experiments (N = 360), participants were asked to generate and later recall events differing along the lines of temporal orientation (past/future) and mnemicity (remembered/imagined). Across all of our experiments, we consistently found that participants were more likely to confuse in recall event simulations that shared the same temporal orientation rather than the same mnemicity. These results show that the temporal orientation of episodic representations can be cognitively represented separately from their mnemicity and have implications for debates about the role of temporality in episodic simulation.

Anthropology Meets History

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Giordano
Keyword(s):  
Social Resource ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
The Future ◽  
Per Se

This article analyses the difficult relation between anthropology and history. The point, therefore, is to show how anthropology conceptualises the past differently from history as a discipline. Beginning with the differences between anthropology and history in terms of the concept of time, the article highlights that while for history time is concrete, objective and exogenous to human beings, for anthropology it is characterised by its being condensed, collectively subjective and endogenous. By analyzing actual examples, the article shows that the anthropologist is not interested in the past per se, but rather in the past as a dimension of the present. Accordingly, actualised, revised and manipulated history as well as the role of the past in the present need to be taken into account. Consequently, history and the past have their own specific efficiency because they are also a form of knowledge and social resource mobilised by single individuals or groups to find their bearings and act accordingly in the present and likewise to plan the future.

The meaning of “time” in episodic memory and mental time travel

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
Temporal Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Anticipation Time

AbstractThe role of time in episodic memory and mental time travel is considered in light of findings on humans' temporal memory and anticipation. Time is not integral or uniform in memory for the past or anticipation of the future. The commonalities of episodic memory and anticipation require further study.

scholarly journals An asymmetry in past and future mental time travel following vmPFC damage

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Ciaramelli ◽  
Filomena Anelli ◽  
Francesca Frassinetti
Keyword(s):  
Time Travel ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
Subjective Time ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Focal Lesions ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Self Reference

Abstract The role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in mental time travel toward the past and the future is debated. Here, patients with focal lesions to the vmPFC and brain-damaged and healthy controls mentally projected themselves to a past, present or future moment of subjective time (self-projection) and classified a series of events as past or future relative to the adopted temporal self-location (self-reference). We found that vmPFC patients were selectively impaired in projecting themselves to the future and in recognizing relative-future events. These findings indicate that vmPFC damage hinders the mental processing of and movement toward future events, pointing to a prominent, multifaceted role of vmPFC in future-oriented mental time travel.

scholarly journals Is mental time travel real time travel?

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Michael Barkasi ◽  
Melanie G. Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Direct Realism ◽  
Similar Argument ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events

Episodic memory (memories of the personal past) and prospecting the future (anticipating events) are often described as mental time travel (MTT). While most use this description metaphorically, we argue that episodic memory may allow for MTT in at least some robust sense. While episodic memory experiences may not allow us to literally travel through time, they do afford genuine awareness of past-perceived events. This is in contrast to an alternative view on which episodic memory experiences present past-perceived events as mere intentional contents. Hence, episodic memory is a way of coming into experiential contact with, or being again aware of, what happened in the past. We argue that episodic memory experiences depend on a causal-informational link with the past events being remembered, and that, assuming direct realism about episodic memory experiences, this link suffices for genuine awareness. Since there is no such link in future prospection, a similar argument cannot be used to show that it also affords genuine awareness of future events. Constructivist views of memory might challenge the idea of memory as genuine awareness of remembered events. We explain how our view is consistent with both constructivist and anti-causalist conceptions of memory. There is still room for an interpretation of episodic memory as enabling genuine awareness of past events, even if it involves reconstruction.

scholarly journals Remembering the past and imagining the future: Identifying and enhancing the contribution of episodic memory

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel L Schacter ◽  
Kevin P Madore
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
The Past ◽  
Brief Training ◽  
Episodic Simulation ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Past Experiences

Recent studies have shown that imagining or simulating future events relies on many of the same cognitive and neural processes as remembering past events. According to the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis, such overlap indicates that both remembered past and imagined future events rely heavily on episodic memory: future simulations are built on retrieved details of specific past experiences that are recombined into novel events. An alternative possibility is that commonalities between remembering and imagining reflect the influence of more general, non-episodic factors such as narrative style or communicative goals that shape the expression of both memory and imagination. We consider recent studies that distinguish the contributions of episodic and non-episodic processes in remembering the past and imagining the future by using an episodic specificity induction—brief training in recollecting the details of a past experience—and also extend this approach to the domains of problem solving and creative thinking. We conclude by suggesting that the specificity induction may target a process of event or scene construction that contributes to episodic memory as well as to imagination, problem solving, and creative thinking.

Adaptations of Time Travel Narratives in Japanese Multimedia: Nurturing Eudaimonia across Time and Space

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung-Ae Lee
Keyword(s):  
Travel Narratives ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Life Styles ◽  
Concern For Others ◽  
The Future ◽  
Live Action

To displace a character in time is to depict a character who becomes acutely conscious of his or her status as other, as she or he strives to comprehend and interact with a culture whose mentality is both familiar and different in obvious and subtle ways. Two main types of time travel pose a philosophical distinction between visiting the past with knowledge of the future and trying to inhabit the future with past cultural knowledge, but in either case the unpredictable impact a time traveller may have on another society is always a prominent theme. At the core of Japanese time travel narratives is a contrast between self-interested and eudaimonic life styles as these are reflected by the time traveller's activities. Eudaimonia is a ‘flourishing life’, a life focused on what is valuable for human beings and the grounding of that value in altruistic concern for others. In a study of multimodal narratives belonging to two sets – adaptations of Tsutsui Yasutaka's young adult novella The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Yamazaki Mari's manga series Thermae Romae – this article examines how time travel narratives in anime and live action film affirm that eudaimonic living is always a core value to be nurtured.

THE ROLE OF THAI PEOPLE IN VIETNAM – LAO TRADITIONAL FRIENDSHIP

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pham Van Loi
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Thai People ◽  
Northwest Region ◽  
Coherent Relationship ◽  
National Borders

Vietnam - Laos has more than 2,000 km of common national borders. The coherent relationship between the two nations and the inhabitants of the two countries has been formed and fostered in history and especially developed over the past 7 decades. The Thai ethnic group in Vietnam has over one million people, residing permanently, concentrated in the Northwest region, the region consists of 8 provinces, of which 4 provinces have the Vietnam-Laos border crossing. This paper focuses on clarifying the practical basis for the Thai people to play a role in the traditional Vietnam-Laos friendship and propose some solutions to promote the role of Thai in maintaining, developing the traditional friendship between Vietnam and Laos, now and in the future.

Dimensi Edukatif pada Kisah-Kisah Al-Qur'an

SUHUF ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-83
Author(s):  
Novita Siswayanti
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Methods ◽  
Religious Values ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Learning Materials ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Vast Amount ◽  
The Past ◽  
Religious Text ◽  
The Future

The stories in Qur'an are Allah’s decrees which convey more beau-tiful values beyond any religious text ever written. It is the holiest scripture and is written  in a wonderful, understandable, and attract-ive language humbly conveying a vast amount of information about life and events that happened in the past. It’s aim is to be an object of reflection for human beings living in this age and the future. Even more so, the stories in Al-Qur'an also entail an educative function providing learning materials,  and teaching methods, regarding the transformative power of Islam and the internalization of true religious values.

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