Confusions of self with close others

This article explores the cognitive underpinnings of interpersonal closeness in the theoretical context of "including other in the self" and, specifically, the notion of overlap between cognitive representations of self and close others. In each of three studies, participants first rated different traits for self, close others (e.g., romantic partner, best friend), and less close others (e.g., media personalities), followed by a surprise source recognition task (who was each trait rated for?). As predicted, in each study, there were more source confusions between traits rated for self and close others (e.g., a trait rated for self recalled as having been rated for the close other) than between self (or close others) and non-close others. Furthermore, several results suggest that the greater confusions between self and close others are due specifically to interpersonal closeness and not to greater familiarity or similarity with close others     

Age-related positivity effects and autobiographical memory detail: Evidence from a past/future source memory task

This study investigated whether the age-related positivity effect strengthens specific event details in autobiographical memory. Participants retrieved past events or imagined future events in response to neutral or emotional cue words. Older adults rated each kind of event more positively than younger adults, demonstrating an age-related positivity effect. We next administered a source memory test. Participants were given the same cue words and tried to retrieve the previously generated event and its source (past or future). Accuracy on this source test should depend on the recollection of specific details about the earlier generated events, providing a more objective measure of those details than subjective ratings. We found that source accuracy was greater for positive than negative future events in both age groups, suggesting that positive future events were more detailed. In contrast, valence did not affect source accuracy for past events in either age group, suggesting that positive and negative past events were equally detailed. Although ageing can bias people to focus on positive aspects of experience, this bias does not appear to strengthen the availability of details for positive relative to negative past events.     

Age-related positivity effects and autobiographical memory detail: evidence from a past/future source memory task

This study investigated whether the age-related positivity effect strengthens specific event details in autobiographical memory. Participants retrieved past events or imagined future events in response to neutral or emotional cue words. Older adults rated each kind of event more positively than younger adults, demonstrating an age-related positivity effect. We next administered a source memory test. Participants were given the same cue words and tried to retrieve the previously generated event and its source (past or future). Accuracy on this source test should depend on the recollection of specific details about the earlier generated events, providing a more objective measure of those details than subjective ratings. We found that source accuracy was greater for positive than negative future events in both age groups, suggesting that positive future events were more detailed. In contrast, valence did not affect source accuracy for past events in either age group, suggesting that positive and negative past events were equally detailed. Although ageing can bias people to focus on positive aspects of experience, this bias does not appear to strengthen the availability of details for positive relative to negative past events.     

Phenomenal characteristics associated with projecting oneself back into the past and forward into the future: influence of valence and temporal distance

As humans, we frequently engage in mental time travel, reliving past experiences and imagining possible future events. This study examined whether similar factors affect the subjective experience associated with remembering the past and imagining the future. Participants mentally "re-experienced" or "pre-experienced" positive and negative events that differed in their temporal distance from the present (close versus distant), and then rated the phenomenal characteristics (i.e., sensorial, contextual, and emotional details) associated with their representations. For both past and future, representations of positive events were associated with a greater feeling of re-experiencing (or pre-experiencing) than representations of negative events. In addition, representations of temporally close events (both past and future) contained more sensorial and contextual details, and generated a stronger feeling of re-experiencing (or pre-experiencing) than representations of temporally distant events. It is suggested that the way we both remember our past and imagine our future is constrained by our current goals.     

A Comparison of Preschoolers' Memory,Knowledge, and Anticipation of Events

This study examined the development of the episodic and semantic memory systems, with an emphasis on the emergence of the two aspects of the former: episodic memory (the ability to re-experience a past event) and episodic future thinking (the ability to pre-experience a future event). Three-, 4-, and 5-year olds were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: past, semantic, or future. Children were asked questions about the same eight events, phrased in past, generalized present, or future tense. Half of these events were ones for which parents rated their children as having a high level of control (or input) over how the event unfolds, whereas the other half were rated as “low control.” Responses were scored with respect to their specificity and accuracy. Results revealed age differences in children's accuracy scores across all three conditions. Children's episodic future thinking and episodic memory, but not semantic memory, were less accurate for low-control events compared with high-control events. These results offer a new perspective on the development of the episodic and semantic memory systems and the methods used to assess them.     

Earliest recollections of self and others in European American and Taiwanese young adults

This study examined the age and content of earliest childhood memories of self and others. European American and Taiwanese participants (N= 111) retrieved their earliest memories in response to the cue words self, mother, family, friend, and surroundings. Memory for mother was from an earlier age than memory for self, and memories for mother, family, and friend were more socially oriented in content than memories for self or surroundings. In addition, in response to all cue words, Euro-Americans recalled memories from an earlier age than did Taiwanese. Euro-Americans also had a greater tendency to report memories of specific events and focused more on their own roles and autonomy than did Taiwanese, who more often described routine events and emphasized the roles of others. These findings have important implications for infantile amnesia and the memory-self interplay.     

Reappraising Past and Future Transitional Events: The Effects of Mental Focus on Present Perceptions of Personal Impact and Self‐Relevance

This research examined how instructions to focus on the concrete details (experience focus) versus broader life significance (coherence focus) influence present perceptions of transitional impact and self‐relevance for past and future transitional events. Participants (Study 1, N = 119; Study 2, N = 251) selected a past or future transition and wrote about it using either an experiential or coherence focus. Participants then rated the event on transitional impact, self‐relevance, and other phenomenological characteristics. Individuals instructed to use a coherence focus on a past transition reported higher levels of material and psychological impact and rated the event as more self‐relevant, compared to those instructed to use an experiential focus. The manipulation did not influence ratings for future events. Controlling for temporal distance and emotional valence did not alter the findings. Future transitions were regarded as more personally important than past transitions. Appraisals of the impact and self‐relevance of transformative past events (but not future events) are affected by the mental focus adopted at retrieval. The findings are considered in light of essential differences between remembering and forecasting and support the notion that a coherence focus promotes adaptive self‐reflection by affording people the cognitive means with which to reconcile transitional experiences.     

Temporal focus,temporal distance,and mind-wandering valence: Results from an experience sampling and an experimental study

When mind-wandering, people may think about events that happened in the past, or events that may happen in the future. Using experience sampling, we first aimed to replicate the finding that future-oriented thoughts show a greater positivity bias than past-oriented thoughts. Furthermore, we investigated whether there is a relation between the temporal distance of past- and future-oriented thoughts and the frequency of positive thoughts, a factor that has received little attention in previous work. Second, we experimentally investigated the relation between temporal focus, temporal distance, and thought valence. Both studies showed that future-oriented thoughts were more positive compared to past-oriented thoughts. Regarding temporal distance, thoughts about the distant past and future were more positive than thoughts about the near past and future in the experiment. However, the experience sampling study did not provide clear insight into this relation. Potential theoretical and methodological explanations for these findings are discussed.     

心理时间旅行的动力机制：自我的作用

选取120名大学生,通过两个研究考察了自我在心理时间旅行中的动力机制。研究1以核心自我评价为评估自我概念的指标,发现自尊和一般自我效能对指向未来的心理时间旅行具有一定的预测效力。研究2通过启动使不同类型的自我概念在意识中占优,发现互倚组比独立组报告出更多具体的事件,且更关注他人和关系。研究表明,自我概念能够引导个体对过去和未来事件的建构。     

Eye movements reduce vividness and emotionality of “flashforwards”

Earlier studies have shown that eye movements during retrieval of disturbing images about past events reduce their vividness and emotionality, which may be due to both tasks competing for working memory resources. This study examined whether eye movements reduce vividness and emotionality of visual distressing images about feared future events: “flashforwards”. A non-clinical sample was asked to select two images of feared future events, which were self-rated for vividness and emotionality. These images were retrieved while making eye movements or without a concurrent secondary task, and then vividness and emotionality were rated again. Relative to the no-dual task condition, eye movements while thinking of future-oriented images resulted in decreased ratings of image vividness and emotional intensity. Apparently, eye movements reduce vividness and emotionality of visual images about past and future feared events. This is in line with a working memory account of the beneficial effects of eye movements, which predicts that any task that taxes working memory during retrieval of disturbing mental images will be beneficial.     

Enduring Positivity: Children Of Incarcerated Parents Report More Positive Than Negative Emotions When Thinking about Close Others

ABSTRACT

Millions of children in the United States experience parental incarceration, yet it is unclear how this experience might shape social cognition. We asked children of incarcerated parents (N = 24) and children whose parents were not incarcerated (N = 58) to describe their parents. Both groups of children also rated the extent to which they agree that they feel positive and, separately, negative emotions when thinking about their parent and best friend. This approach allowed us to test between two alternative hypotheses. On the one hand, cultural narratives in the United States convey negative messages about incarcerated people, and these messages could prompt children to report negativity when thinking about their incarcerated parents. On the other hand, children’s positivity toward close others is robust. Thus, when thinking about their incarcerated parents, children may report a great deal of positivity. Consistent with the latter possibility, children were more likely to describe their incarcerated parents using positive rather than negative terms. Moreover, children of incarcerated parents were more likely to agree that thinking about close others made them feel positive emotions than they were to agree that thinking about close others made them feel negative emotions. A similar pattern of results emerged among children whose parents were not incarcerated. These findings demonstrate the robustness of children’s positivity and can inform debates regarding contact between incarcerated parents and their children.     

Separating past and future autobiographical events in memory: Evidence for a reality monitoring asymmetry

After thinking about the past and imagining the future, how do people separate these real and imagined events in memory? We had subjects engage in past and future autobiographical elaboration, then later take memory tests that required them to recollect these earlier generated events. In Experiment 1, testing memory for previously generated past or future autobiographical events led to fewer source memory confusions than did an elaborative control task, suggesting that the distinctive features of autobiographical elaboration improved subsequent retrieval monitoring accuracy. In Experiment 2, we directly compared retrieval monitoring accuracy for previously generated past and future autobiographical events and found that subjects made fewer source confusions when searching memory for future events. This asymmetry suggests that the features characterizing future elaborations (e.g., cognitive operations) were used more effectively during reality monitoring than were the features characterizing past elaborations (e.g., perceptual details), and has implications for future-oriented theories of memory.     

Should I believe this? Reality monitoring of accounts of self‐experienced and invented recent and distant autobiographical events

To examine personal and interpersonal reality monitoring, 240 participants wrote accounts of invented or self‐experienced autobiographical events. Half the participants wrote about a distant event that happened before the age of 15 and half wrote about a recent event that happened after the age of 15. Using a yoked design, participants rated the qualitative details of their own accounts and the details of other participants' accounts. Consistent with previous research, we found that self‐experienced accounts contained more qualitative details than invented accounts, and that accounts of recent events contained more qualitative details than accounts of distant events. Participants rated their own accounts as more qualitatively detailed than other participants' accounts, which suggests that they did not base their self‐ratings solely on the written details. We discuss the practical and theoretical importance of our findings. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

自我相关未来思考:两种基本类型及其主要心理成分比较

自我相关未来思考是个体产生自我相关未来想法的心理加工,它包括未来情景思考和未来个人语义思考两种基本类型。两类思考都需记忆、自我和主观时间三种主要心理成分参与,但参与的具体形式可能有所不同:未来情景思考可能主要依赖于情景记忆和语义记忆、情景自我知识和语义自我知识、经验时间;未来个人语义思考可能主要依赖于语义记忆、语义自我知识和知道时间。三种主要心理成分在两种思考类型中的作用可能是相同的,其中,记忆是原材料,自我起引导作用,主观时间是先决条件。将来可以参照思考未来公众抽象问题的研究进一步明确自我和记忆在未来个人语义思考中的作用,还可以通过探究不同心理成分内部及成分间的交互作用进而了解各成分在自我相关未来思考中的作用机制。     

Imagining nice and nasty events in childhood or adulthood: recent positive events show the most imagination inflation

We explored whether event recency and valence affect people’s susceptibility to imagination inflation. Using a three-stage procedure, subjects imagined positive and negative events happening in their distant or recent past. First, subjects rated how confident they were that they had experienced particular positive and negative events in childhood or adulthood using a Life Events Inventory (LEI). Two weeks later, they imagined two positive and two negative events from the LEI. Finally, they rated their confidence on the LEI a second time. For positive events, subjects showed more imagination inflation for adulthood than childhood events. For negative events, they showed no difference in imagination inflation for adulthood and childhood events. We discuss factors that may influence source confusions for memories of the past and highlight directions for future research.     

Memory,Future Thinking,and the Self. In Honour of Martial Van Der Linden

Over the past 20 years, much progress has been made in understanding the relations between memory and future thinking, and their role in shaping our sense of self and identity. My own interest in these research questions owes much to Martial Van der Linden, with whom I had the chance to interact closely for several years. The purpose of this article is to pay tribute to him by reviewing the work we initiated together on autobiographical memory and future-oriented thinking. I first review our early work on the relationship between memory and future thinking and discuss their role in self-representation. Then, I provide an overview of the underlying neural bases and describe the alterations of autobiographical thinking that characterize certain psychological disorders. Finally, I outline an integrative framework that I recently proposed to account for the cognitive structure of past and future autobiographical thinking.