An adaptive function of mental time travel: Motivating farsighted decisions

Benoit, Roland G.; Berkers, Ruud; Paulus, Philipp C.

doi:10.1017/s0140525x1700125x

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Third, the possible effect of the content of future simulations may be due to its preparatory and motivational aspects (Benoit, Berkers, & Paulus, 2018; Boyer, 2008; Bulley et al, 2016). For example, Stein et al (2018) have suggested that: “One interpretation of these findings is that [episodic foresight] broadens the temporal window over which individuals integrate the value of reinforcement, thus facilitating consideration of a behaviour’s negative, long-term outcomes (e.g., lung cancer from smoking)”.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bulley

Miloyan

Pepper

et al. 2019

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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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.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bulley

Miloyan

Pepper

et al. 2019

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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“…53,[95][96][97] ) as part of a more general optimistic view of their personal future. 46 This optimism bias is considered to be adaptive, 98,99 beneficial for physical health and vital for mental health. 100,101 SRE were largely independent of STE, although the two were modestly inversely correlated (see also 102 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in social reward and threat expectancies linked to grey matter volumes in key regions of the social brain

Crawford¹,

Muhlert²,

MacDonald³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Prospection (mentally simulating future events) generates emotionally charged mental images that guide social decision-making. Positive and negative social expectancies -imagining new social interactions to be rewarding vs. threatening -are core components of social approach and avoidance motivation, respectively. Stable individual differences in such positive and negative future-related cognitions may be underpinned by distinct neuroanatomical substrates. Here, we asked 100 healthy adults to vividly imagine themselves in a novel selfrelevant social scenario that was ambiguous with regards to possible social acceptance or rejection. During this task we measured their expectancies for social reward (e.g. anticipated feelings of social connection) or threat (e.g. anticipated feelings of rejection). On a separate day they underwent structural MRI; voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to explore the relation between their social reward and threat expectancies and regional grey matter volumes (rGMV). Increased rGMV in key regions involved in prospection, subjective valuation and emotion regulation (including ventromedial prefrontal cortex), correlated with both higher social reward and lower social threat expectancies. In contrast, social threat expectancies were uniquely linked with rGMV of regions involved in social attention (posterior superior temporal sulcus) and interoception (somatosensory cortex). These findings provide novel insight into the neurobiology of future-oriented cognitiveaffective processes critical to adaptive social functioning.

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“…These models were built using the lme4 and lmerTest packages in R and estimated significance using the Type III Sum of Squares. Fixed effects and their scales included: culturally adjusted income bracket (1-7, decline to respond, I don't know), socioeconomic status (1-10), financial security (1-5, decline to respond), age (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30), sex (male, female), education (high school, college, post graduate), culture (English, Mandarin), timeframe (past, future), and log k. Event name (72 total events) and participant (74 total participants) were included as random effects. In the models above, event ratings, age, SES, psychological distance, and log k were coded as continuous variables.…”

Section: Delay Discounting Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Episodic memory and episodic foresight, or future simulation, engage the same core network of brain regions, including the hippocampus, parahippocampal cortex, and the temporal and inferior posterior parietal cortices 24 . Past memories shape our personal narrative 25 and enable us to predict, simulate, and plan for future outcomes 17 , 26 . Further, manipulating participants’ representation of the future by enhancing its perceived concreteness with detail 4 , 27 , 28 and cueing individuals to engage in episodic foresight can alter discounting behavior 29 – 31 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delay discounting decisions are linked to temporal distance representations of world events across cultures

Croote

Lai

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Delay discounting describes the phenomenon whereby the subjective value of a reward declines as the time until its receipt increases. Individuals differ in the subjective value that they assign to future rewards, yet, the components feeding into this appraisal of value remain unclear. We examined whether temporal psychological distance, i.e. the closeness one feels to the past and future, is one such component. English speakers in the USA and Mandarin speakers in China completed a delay discounting task and organized past and future world events on a canvas according to their representation of the event's temporal position relative to themselves. Previous work has identified linguistic and cultural differences in time conception between these populations, thus, we hypothesized that this sample would display the variability necessary to probe whether temporal psychological distance plays a role in reward valuation. We found that English speakers employed horizontal, linear representations of world events, while Mandarin speakers used more twodimensional, circular representations. Across cultures, individuals who represented the future as more distant discounted future rewards more strongly. Distance representations of past events, however, were associated with discounting behaviors selectively in Mandarin speakers. This suggests that temporal psychological distance plays a fundamental role in farsighted decision-making. Time is highly abstract and intangible in that it cannot be seen, touched, heard or sensed directly, yet it is an integral component of daily decision-making. When choosing between attending a concert tonight or a weekend getaway next month, one must weigh the value of each option against the backdrop of time. Does one month feel as though it is right around the corner, or a decade away? In general, humans prefer immediate rewards to delayed rewards, a phenomenon known as temporal discounting 1,2. Previous research has shown, however, that individuals vary substantially in the degree to which they discount future rewards. Variability in discounting behavior has been associated with socioeconomic status 3 , feelings of self-continuity 4,5 , and several psychiatric disorders 6-10. Neural activity in the ventral striatum, medial prefrontal cortex, and posterior cingulate cortex has already been shown to track subjective value during temporal discounting 1 , but the key factors that feed into this construction of value are not well understood. Individuals' subjective perception of the time delay to receive a reward is one factor that has been shown to play a role in temporal decision-making 11-14. This line of work suggests individuals do not accurately represent objective changes in duration and instead represent future time horizons nonlinearly 11. For instance, though 12 months is objectively twice as long as 6 months, it is often perceived to be less than two times as long 12. In the current study, we focus on the role of past and future psychological distance in guiding discounting decisions, rath...

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An adaptive function of mental time travel: Motivating farsighted decisions

Cited by 13 publications

References 29 publications

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

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

Individual differences in social reward and threat expectancies linked to grey matter volumes in key regions of the social brain

Delay discounting decisions are linked to temporal distance representations of world events across cultures

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