Future Episodic Thinking 2 Lec 13 Notes

Future Episodic Thinking (2)

What is the theoretical link between episodic memory & episodic future thinking?

• Narrative Ability

• Episodic Simulation Theory

• Scene Construction Theory

Narrative Ability

Race et al (2011)

• Investigated the nature + necessity of the MTL in imagining the future + tested the novel hypothesis that the MTL contributes to future thinking by supporting online binding processes related to narrative construction

• Amnesic patients with MTL damage + healthy controls constructed narratives about 1) future events, 2) past events, 3) visually presented pictures

• Measure mean no.of episodic details recorded

• All three tasks place similar demands on narrative construction - only past + future require memory/future episodic thinking to generate narrative construction

• Amnesic patients produced impoverished descriptions of both past + future events - BUT unimpaired at producing detailed picture narratives

• Future thinking performance positively correlated with episodic memory performance but did not correlated with narrative pic performance

• Arguably strong evidence that a common MTL mechanism supports both EM + EFT

• Ability to generate + maintain a detailed narrative is preserved in amnesia - suggests a common MTL mechanism supports both EM + E future thinking

• Argues against deficits in higher order processes related to narrative construction as the underlying cause of future thinking impairments in amnesia

Squire et al (2010) challenges view that EM + EFT rely on the same MTL mechanism

• Demonstrated that amnesic patients with MTL damage can imagine future events as well as controls

• Concluded that MTL not necessary for future thinking - prior reports of impaired future thinking in amnesia reflect neural damage outside the MTL

• HOWEVER Squire’s patients did not demonstrate pervasive autobiographical memory loss - suggests the extent of future thinking + memory impairments in amnesia may be related

• Fact that Race et al (2011)found pos correlation between EM + EFT => suggestive that a common MTL mechanism underlies both functions

EPISODIC SIMULATION THEORY Schacter & Addis (2007)

• EM is widely seen as a constructive process – rather than reproductive - process prone to various kinds of errors + illusions

• The constructive nature of EM is highly adaptive for performing a major function of this system to draw on past experiences in a way that allows us to imagine + simulate episodes which may occur in our personal future

• A number of researchers have recognised that information about past experiences is useful only to the extent that it allows us to anticipate what may happen in the future (Suddendorf & Busby, 2003) also Anderson & Schooler’s (1991) analysis of adaptive forgetting supports the idea that info about the past is retained when it is likely to be used in the future

• Future events are rarely exact replicas of past events - memory system which simply stored rote records of what happened in the past – would not be suited to stimulating future events

• Suggest a system built upon constructive principles is better suited to stimulating future happenings draw on elements of the past + retain the general sense of what has happened

• simulation related processes such as EM , future thinking + scene construction all require the extraction of relevant episodic details from memory + the recombination of these details for form fictitious simulations of novel scenes it is this process that depends on the integrity of the hippocampus

• One important function of retaining personal memories is that aspects of prev experienced events are used in envisioning future events in similar settings

• System can flexibly extract, recombine, + reassemble these elements in a way that allows us to stimulate , imagine or pre-experience events which have never occurred previously in the exact form we imagine them

• This theory endorses Suddendorf & Busby’s (2003) suggestion that “episodic reconstruction is just an adaptive feature of the future planning system”

• This is CONSTRUCTIVE EPSIODIC SIMUTLATION HYPOTHESIS

• For this theory to have merit then remembering the past + imaging the future should show a no of similar characteristics + depend on the same neural substrates

• Also suggests that the quality of future thinking will depend on the quality of the EM on which it is based

The importance of vivid + relevant memory are experienced as less vivid

• More remote memories have less perceptual details

• More distant future events are also less detailed + vivid

• e.g. if asked to imagine a holiday you would take next summer – this would be a more vivid representation that if asked to imagine a holiday you would take when you reach 60.

Szpunar & McDermott (2008)

• Hypothesised that if mental representations of the future as based upon the contents of memory - then the phenomenological quality of the episodic future thought should vary based on the contents of memory which have been sampled

• Future images based on recently experienced settings should be experienced as more vivid + associated with stronger subjective experience if they are based on more remote memories

• EXP 1 Ptp’s engaged in episodic future thought for events occurring within the next week either familiar (home) or novel (jungle) setting - expect ptps to have more vivid subjective exp’s when imaging events in a familiar context than novel setting

• Ptp’s used 7 point likert scales to rate the characterisitcs of the mental representations they had formed - sensorial details index

• EFT occurring in familiar settings was rated as having more sensorial detail + higher clarity of context - this may just be because familiar settings associated with more personal knowledge of what occurs within them – THIS LEAD TO EXP 2 TO CONTROL THIS DISCREPANCY

• EXP 2 varied extent to which familiar settings were characterised by perceptual detail

• Ptp asked to engage in episodic future thought - occurring in the next week in either a...

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