Eye movements disrupt episodic future thinking

Stefania de Vito, Antimo Buonocore, Jean-François Bonnefon and Sergio Della Sala

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Remembering the past and imagining the future both rely on complex mental imagery. We considered the possibility that constructing a future scene might tap a component of mental imagery that is not as critical for remembering past scenes. Whereas visual imagery plays an important role in remembering the past, we predicted that spatial imagery plays a crucial role in imagining the future. For the purpose of teasing apart the different components underpinning scene construction in the two experiences of recalling episodic memories and shaping novel future events, we used a paradigm that might selectively affect one of these components (i.e., the spatial). Participants performed concurrent eye movements while remembering the past and imagining the future. These concurrent eye movements selectively interfere with spatial imagery, while sparing visual imagery. Eye movements prevented participants from imagining complex and detailed future scenes, but had no comparable effect on the recollection of past scenes. Similarities between remembering the past and imagining the future are coupled with some differences. The present findings uncover another fundamental divergence between the two processes.

Keywords: Episodic future thinking; Prospection; Eye movements; Visual imagery; Spatial mental imagery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-08
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01398644v1
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Memory, 2015, 23 (6), pp.796 - 805. ⟨10.1080/09658211.2014.927888⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01398644v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01398644

DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2014.927888

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().