Back to the future

Significant components of psychoanalytic technique, and the theory that underlies it, seem to remain buried in our past, but are central to the growth of psychoanalysis as a treatment method based on understanding a patient's mind. By updating technique based on a theory of mind with structure, the author views the increasing freedom of the patient's mind as central to the curative process, and takes the position that in interpretive work, the analyst needs to pay more attention to the patient's capacity to meaningfully receive and integrate the analyst's interventions.     

Back to the actual future

The purpose of the paper is to rethink the role of actuality in the branching model of possibilities. We investigate the idea that the model should be enriched with an additional factor—the so-called Thin Red Line—which is supposed to represent the single possible course of events that gets actualized in time. We believe that this idea was often misconceived which prompted some unfortunate reactions. On the one hand, it suggested problematic semantic models of future tense and and on the other, it provoked questionable lines of criticism. We reassess the debate and point to potential pitfalls, focusing on the semantic dimension of the Thin Red Line theory. Our agenda transcends the semantics, however. We conclude that semantic considerations do not threaten the Thin Red Line theory and that the proper debate should be carried in the domain of metaphysics.

     

My future self: Young children's ability to anticipate and explain future states

Two experiments examine preschool-aged children's ability to anticipate physiological states of the self. One hundred and eight 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds were presented with stories and pictorial scenes designed to evoke thought about future states such as thirst, cold, and hunger. They were asked to imagine themselves in these scenarios and to choose one item from a set of three that they would need. Only one of the items could be used to address the future state. In both experiments, developmental differences were obtained for correct item choices and types of verbal explanations. In Experiment 2, the performance of the 3- and 4-year-olds was negatively affected by introducing items that were semantically associated with the scenarios but did not address the future state, whereas the 5-year-olds’ performance was not. Results are discussed with respect to children's understanding of the future, theory of mind, and inhibitory control skills.     

Back to the future: autobiographical planning and the functionality of mind-wandering

Given that as much as half of human thought arises in a stimulus independent fashion, it would seem unlikely that such thoughts would play no functional role in our lives. However, evidence linking the mind-wandering state to performance decrement has led to the notion that mind-wandering primarily represents a form of cognitive failure. Based on previous work showing a prospective bias to mind-wandering, the current study explores the hypothesis that one potential function of spontaneous thought is to plan and anticipate personally relevant future goals, a process referred to as autobiographical planning. The results confirm that the content of mind-wandering is predominantly future-focused, demonstrate that individuals with high working memory capacity are more likely to engage in prospective mind-wandering, and show that prospective mind-wandering frequently involves autobiographical planning. Together this evidence suggests that mind-wandering can enable prospective cognitive operations that are likely to be useful to the individual as they navigate through their daily lives.     

Imagining the future self through thought experiments

The ability of the mind to conceptualize what is not present is essential. It allows us to reason counterfactually about what might have happened had events unfolded differently or had another course of action been taken. It allows us to think about what might happen – to perform 'Gedankenexperimente' (thought experiments) – before we act. However, the cognitive and neural mechanisms mediating this ability are poorly understood. We suggest that the frontopolar cortex (FPC) keeps track of and evaluates alternative choices (what we might have done), whereas the anterior lateral prefrontal cortex (alPFC) compares simulations of possible future scenarios (what we might do) and evaluates their reward values. Together, these brain regions support the construction of suppositional scenarios.     

Representations of the self in the near and distant future

Seven studies provide evidence that representations of the self at a distant-future time point are more abstract and structured than are representations of the self at a near-future time point and that distant-future behaviors are more strongly related to general self-conceptions. Distant-future self-representations incorporate broader, more superordinate identities than do near-future self-representations (Study 1) and are characterized by less complexity (Study 2), more cross-situational consistency (Study 3), and a greater degree of schematicity (Study 4). Furthermore, people's behavioral predictions of their distant-future (vs. near-future) behavior are more strongly related to their general self-characteristics (Study 5), distant-future behaviors are seen as more self-expressive (Study 6), and distant-future behaviors that do not match up with acknowledged self-characteristics are more strongly rejected as reflections of the self (Study 7). Implications for understanding both the nature of the self-concept and the way in which distance may influence a range of self-processes are discussed.     

Back to the future: Temporal perspective in the explanation of events

Prospective hindsight involves generating an explanation for a future event as if it had already happened; i.e., one goes forward in time, and then looks back. In order to examine how shifts in perspective might influence people's perceptions of events, we investigated two possible factors: temporal perspective (whether an event is set in the future or past) and uncertainty (whether the event's occurrence is certain or uncertain). In the first experiment, temporal perspective showed little influence while outcome uncertainty strongly affected the nature of explanations for events. Explanations for sure events tended to be longer, to contain a higher proportion of episodic reasons, and to be expressed in past tense. Evidence from the second experiment supports the view that uncertainty mediates not the amount of time spent explaining, but rather subjects' choice of explanation type. The implications of these findings for the use of temporal perspective in decision aiding are discussed.     

Personal identity,transformative experiences,and the future self

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - The article explores the relation between personal identity and life-changing decisions such as the decision for a certain career or the decision to...     

回归文本，回归生存

[主持人手记]这些年来,也许是受到海德格尔的影响,西方哲学史研究界开始重视古希腊哲学;所以有所谓的"回归古希腊的小气候"之称。但总体看来,古典哲学研究有两个禁忌:其一是缺乏文本;其二是缺乏生气。在一些学术著作中,我们常能读到对巴门尼德、苏格拉底、柏拉图或亚里     

Overconfident prediction of future actions and outcomes by self and others

In a follow-up study to Dunning, Griffin, Milojkovic, and L. Ross (1990), which had investigated the phenomenon of overconfidence in social prediction, two samples of first-year undergraduates were invited to make predictions about their own future responses (and, in the case of Sample 2, also those of their roommates) over the months ahead. These predictions were accompanied by confidence estimates and were evaluated in the light of actual responses reported later by the subjects in question. The primary finding was that self-predictions, like social predictions, proved to be consistently overconfident. As in Dunning et al., moreover, overconfidence could be traced to two sources. First, expressions of particularly high confidence rarely proved to be warranted; as confidence increased, the gap between accuracy and confidence widened. Second, predictions that went against relevant base rates yielded very low accuracy in the face of relatively unattenuated confidence levels. The implications of these results are discussed, and one potentially important underlying mechanism--the failure to make adequate inferential allowance for the uncertainties of situational construal--is proposed for further research.     

Narrative self and high risk for schizophrenia: remembering the past and imagining the future

ABSTRACT

We examined the narrative self of those at high psychometric risk for schizophrenia (HR). Eighty undergraduate students wrote personal narratives about a turning-point event in their life, and about a possible future. The turning-point narratives were coded for topic, specificity, event valence, valence of causal coherence link, overall level of causal coherence, and agency. The future narratives were coded for the number and valence of goals, topic of goals, and specificity of goals. Word count was applied to all narratives. The HR group expressed lower levels of agency and a trend of lower levels of causal coherence when narrating turning-point events. When imagining their futures, HR participants produced shorter narratives and showed a trend of having fewer goals. Including the dimensions of both the turning point and the future narratives revealed that the HR group membership was best predicted by lower levels of agency and of causal coherence in the turning-point narrative, and fewer words in the future narrative. Narratives differed specifically in those few elements that are critical for the achievement of narrative continuity. Consistent with the theory, people at high risk for schizophrenia already present, to some extent, an impoverishment in their narrative sense of self.