My primary research interest is in future thinking - the ability to mentally simulate personal future scenarios. For my PhD, I investigated the complex relationship between memory, executive function and episodic future thinking. Although this is a popular topic, as yet, the underlying cognitive processes and significance of future thinking is only moderately understood.
My research methods have involved using neuropsychological assessments and experimental measures with brain damaged individuals, healthy undergraduates and older adults. My recent work explores future thinking that arises spontaneously (termed: involuntary future mental time travel). Although flash-forwards are known to occur in anxiety disorders, their characteristics in healthy populations have yet to be fully explored. Hence this is the focus of our present work, which has primarily been carried out at the Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Denmark.
I have taught Research Methods and Statistics to undergraduate students (Level 1) for three years as a part-time lecturer. I have also supervised Open University students (Level 3) at Residential Summer School for the past two years.
Thinking about our possible selves can entail thinking about self-related imagined future events.... more Thinking about our possible selves can entail thinking about self-related imagined future events. When remembering and imagining, individuals can use both 1 st person (field) and 3 rd person (observer) perspectives. There is currently a paucity of research examining the visual perspectives of episodic future thoughts that represent possible selves. We hypothesised that temporally distant self-images would elicit more observer perspectives in episodic thoughts than temporally near self-images and current self-images. Utilising a repeated measures design, sixty-eight undergraduate students completed IAM, I Will Be near and I Will Be far conditions (Rathbone et al., 2011) to generate self-images and their related episodic thoughts. It was found that episodic qualities were POSSIBLE SELVES AND MTT
Remembering and imagining are intricately related, particularly in imagining the future: episodic... more Remembering and imagining are intricately related, particularly in imagining the future: episodic future thinking. It is proposed that remembering the recent past and imagining the near future take place in what we term the remembering–imagining system. The remembering–imagining system renders recently formed episodic memories and episodic imagined near-future events highly accessible. We suggest that this serves the purpose of integrating past, current, and future goal-related activities. When the remembering–imagining system is compromised, following brain damage and in psychological illnesses, the future cannot be effectively imagined and episodic future thinking may become dominated by dysfunctional images of the future.
Accepted Author Version. Not yet edited or proofed. Please see disclaimer on the article abstract... more Accepted Author Version. Not yet edited or proofed. Please see disclaimer on the article abstract page.
Although involuntary past and future mental time travel (MTT) has been examined outside the labor... more Although involuntary past and future mental time travel (MTT) has been examined outside the laboratory in diary studies, MTT has primarily been studied in the context of laboratory studies using voluntary construction tasks. In this study, we adapted and extended a paradigm previously used to elicit involuntary and voluntary memories (Schlagman and Kvavilashvili, 2008). Our aim was – for the first time – to examine involuntary and voluntary future MTT under controlled laboratory conditions. The involuntary task involved a monotonous task which included potential cues for involuntary MTT. Temporal direction was manipulated between participants, whereas retrieval mode was manipulated within participants. We replicated robust past-future differences, such as the future positivity bias. Additionally, we replicated key voluntary-involuntary differences: Involuntary future representations had similar characteristics as involuntary memories in that they were elicited faster, were more specific and garnered more emotional impact than their voluntary counterparts. We also found that the future and past involuntary MTT led to both positive and negative mood impact, and that the valence of the impact was associated with the emotional valence of the event. This study advances scientific understanding of involuntary future representations in healthy populations, and validates a laboratory paradigm that can be flexibly and systematically utilised to explore different characteristics of voluntary and involuntary MTT, which has not been possible within naturalistic paradigms.
Objectives To examine the impact of memory accessibility on episodic future thinking.
Design Sing... more Objectives To examine the impact of memory accessibility on episodic future thinking. Design Single case study of neurological patient HCM and an age-matched comparison group of neurologically healthy controls. Methods We administered a full battery of tests assessing general intelligence, memory and executive functioning. To assess autobiographical memory, the Autobiographical Memory Interview (Kopelman, Wilson & Baddeley, 1990) was administered. The Past Episodic and Future Episodic sections of Dalla Barba’s Confabulation Battery (Dalla Barba, 1993) and a specifically tailored Mental Time Travel Questionnaire were administered to assess future thinking in HCM and age-matched controls. Results HCM presented with a deficit in forming new memories (anterograde amnesia) and recalling events from before the onset of neurological impairment (retrograde amnesia). HCM’s autobiographical memory impairments are characterised by a paucity of memories from recent life. In comparison with controls, two features of his future thoughts are apparent: Reduced episodic future thinking and outdated content of his episodic future thoughts. Conclusions This paper suggests we should look beyond popular conceptualisations of the past-future relation in amnesia via focussing on reduced future thinking. Investigating both the quantity and quality of future thoughts produced by amnesic patients may lead to developments in understanding the complex nature of future thinking disorders resulting from memory impairments.
Our overriding hypothesis was that future thinking would be linked with goals to a greater extent... more Our overriding hypothesis was that future thinking would be linked with goals to a greater extent than memories; conceptualising goals as current concerns (i.e., uncompleted personal goals; Klinger, 1975). We also hypothesised that current concern-related events would differ from non-current concern-related events on a set of phenomenological characteristics. We report novel data from a study examining involuntary and voluntary mental time travel using an adapted laboratory paradigm. Specifically, after autobiographical memories or future thoughts were elicited (between participants) in an involuntary and voluntary retrieval mode (within participants), participants self-generated five current concerns and decided whether each event was relevant or not to their current concerns. Consistent with our hypothesis, compared with memories, a larger percentage of involuntary and voluntary future thoughts reflected current concerns. Furthermore, events related to current concerns differed from non-concern-related events on a range of cognitive, representational and affective phenomenological measures. These effects were consistent across temporal direction. In general, our results agree with the proposition that involuntary and voluntary future thinking is important for goal-directed cognition and behaviour.
Episodic Future Thinking (EFT) has been linked with our ability to remember past events. However,... more Episodic Future Thinking (EFT) has been linked with our ability to remember past events. However, its specific neurocognitive subprocesses have remained elusive. In Study 1, a study of healthy older adults was conducted to investigate the candidate subprocesses of EFT. Participants completed a standard EFT cue word task, two memory measures (Verbal Paired Associates I, Source Memory) and two measures of executive function (Trail Making Test, Tower Test). In Study 2, healthy young adults also completed an EFT task and neuropsychological measures. The link between neurocognitive measures and five characteristics of EFT was investigated. Specifically, it was found that Source Memory and Trail Making Test performance predicted the episodic specificity of future events in older but not younger adults. Replicating previous findings, older adults produced future events with greater semantic but fewer episodic details when compared with young adults. These results extend the data and emphasise the importance of the multiple subprocesses underlying EFT.
Patient MW, a known confabulator, and healthy age-matched controls produced past and future event... more Patient MW, a known confabulator, and healthy age-matched controls produced past and future events. Events were judged on emotional valence and plausibility characteristics. No differences in valence were found between MW and controls, although a positive emotional bias toward the future was observed. Strikingly, MW produced confabulations about future events that were significantly more implausible than those produced by healthy controls whereas MW and healthy controls produced past events comparable in plausibility. A neurocognitive explanation is offered based on differences between remembering and imagining. Possible implications of this single case in relation to confabulation and mental time travel are discussed.
Studies exploring mental time travel commonly use cue word paradigms to elicit past and future au... more Studies exploring mental time travel commonly use cue word paradigms to elicit past and future autobiographical events. However, the effect of trial duration (how long participants are allowed to describe events) on the relationship between episodic and non-episodic detail and episodic specificity (i.e. whether longer durations increase event specificity) has not been examined. To resolve these issues, a cue word study was devised whereby participants described past and future events under three randomly administered time constraints: short (1 min), standard (3 min), and long (5 min) durations. Findings indicated that an individual’s capacity for episodic and non-episodic thought for the past and future were unrelated. This lends supports to the idea that independent mechanisms are responsible for episodic and semantic information. This study also offers clarity concerning the effect of different trial durations on episodic specificity which may aid the design of future studies of mental time travel.
Thinking about our possible selves can entail thinking about self-related imagined future events.... more Thinking about our possible selves can entail thinking about self-related imagined future events. When remembering and imagining, individuals can use both 1 st person (field) and 3 rd person (observer) perspectives. There is currently a paucity of research examining the visual perspectives of episodic future thoughts that represent possible selves. We hypothesised that temporally distant self-images would elicit more observer perspectives in episodic thoughts than temporally near self-images and current self-images. Utilising a repeated measures design, sixty-eight undergraduate students completed IAM, I Will Be near and I Will Be far conditions (Rathbone et al., 2011) to generate self-images and their related episodic thoughts. It was found that episodic qualities were POSSIBLE SELVES AND MTT
Remembering and imagining are intricately related, particularly in imagining the future: episodic... more Remembering and imagining are intricately related, particularly in imagining the future: episodic future thinking. It is proposed that remembering the recent past and imagining the near future take place in what we term the remembering–imagining system. The remembering–imagining system renders recently formed episodic memories and episodic imagined near-future events highly accessible. We suggest that this serves the purpose of integrating past, current, and future goal-related activities. When the remembering–imagining system is compromised, following brain damage and in psychological illnesses, the future cannot be effectively imagined and episodic future thinking may become dominated by dysfunctional images of the future.
Accepted Author Version. Not yet edited or proofed. Please see disclaimer on the article abstract... more Accepted Author Version. Not yet edited or proofed. Please see disclaimer on the article abstract page.
Although involuntary past and future mental time travel (MTT) has been examined outside the labor... more Although involuntary past and future mental time travel (MTT) has been examined outside the laboratory in diary studies, MTT has primarily been studied in the context of laboratory studies using voluntary construction tasks. In this study, we adapted and extended a paradigm previously used to elicit involuntary and voluntary memories (Schlagman and Kvavilashvili, 2008). Our aim was – for the first time – to examine involuntary and voluntary future MTT under controlled laboratory conditions. The involuntary task involved a monotonous task which included potential cues for involuntary MTT. Temporal direction was manipulated between participants, whereas retrieval mode was manipulated within participants. We replicated robust past-future differences, such as the future positivity bias. Additionally, we replicated key voluntary-involuntary differences: Involuntary future representations had similar characteristics as involuntary memories in that they were elicited faster, were more specific and garnered more emotional impact than their voluntary counterparts. We also found that the future and past involuntary MTT led to both positive and negative mood impact, and that the valence of the impact was associated with the emotional valence of the event. This study advances scientific understanding of involuntary future representations in healthy populations, and validates a laboratory paradigm that can be flexibly and systematically utilised to explore different characteristics of voluntary and involuntary MTT, which has not been possible within naturalistic paradigms.
Objectives To examine the impact of memory accessibility on episodic future thinking.
Design Sing... more Objectives To examine the impact of memory accessibility on episodic future thinking. Design Single case study of neurological patient HCM and an age-matched comparison group of neurologically healthy controls. Methods We administered a full battery of tests assessing general intelligence, memory and executive functioning. To assess autobiographical memory, the Autobiographical Memory Interview (Kopelman, Wilson & Baddeley, 1990) was administered. The Past Episodic and Future Episodic sections of Dalla Barba’s Confabulation Battery (Dalla Barba, 1993) and a specifically tailored Mental Time Travel Questionnaire were administered to assess future thinking in HCM and age-matched controls. Results HCM presented with a deficit in forming new memories (anterograde amnesia) and recalling events from before the onset of neurological impairment (retrograde amnesia). HCM’s autobiographical memory impairments are characterised by a paucity of memories from recent life. In comparison with controls, two features of his future thoughts are apparent: Reduced episodic future thinking and outdated content of his episodic future thoughts. Conclusions This paper suggests we should look beyond popular conceptualisations of the past-future relation in amnesia via focussing on reduced future thinking. Investigating both the quantity and quality of future thoughts produced by amnesic patients may lead to developments in understanding the complex nature of future thinking disorders resulting from memory impairments.
Our overriding hypothesis was that future thinking would be linked with goals to a greater extent... more Our overriding hypothesis was that future thinking would be linked with goals to a greater extent than memories; conceptualising goals as current concerns (i.e., uncompleted personal goals; Klinger, 1975). We also hypothesised that current concern-related events would differ from non-current concern-related events on a set of phenomenological characteristics. We report novel data from a study examining involuntary and voluntary mental time travel using an adapted laboratory paradigm. Specifically, after autobiographical memories or future thoughts were elicited (between participants) in an involuntary and voluntary retrieval mode (within participants), participants self-generated five current concerns and decided whether each event was relevant or not to their current concerns. Consistent with our hypothesis, compared with memories, a larger percentage of involuntary and voluntary future thoughts reflected current concerns. Furthermore, events related to current concerns differed from non-concern-related events on a range of cognitive, representational and affective phenomenological measures. These effects were consistent across temporal direction. In general, our results agree with the proposition that involuntary and voluntary future thinking is important for goal-directed cognition and behaviour.
Episodic Future Thinking (EFT) has been linked with our ability to remember past events. However,... more Episodic Future Thinking (EFT) has been linked with our ability to remember past events. However, its specific neurocognitive subprocesses have remained elusive. In Study 1, a study of healthy older adults was conducted to investigate the candidate subprocesses of EFT. Participants completed a standard EFT cue word task, two memory measures (Verbal Paired Associates I, Source Memory) and two measures of executive function (Trail Making Test, Tower Test). In Study 2, healthy young adults also completed an EFT task and neuropsychological measures. The link between neurocognitive measures and five characteristics of EFT was investigated. Specifically, it was found that Source Memory and Trail Making Test performance predicted the episodic specificity of future events in older but not younger adults. Replicating previous findings, older adults produced future events with greater semantic but fewer episodic details when compared with young adults. These results extend the data and emphasise the importance of the multiple subprocesses underlying EFT.
Patient MW, a known confabulator, and healthy age-matched controls produced past and future event... more Patient MW, a known confabulator, and healthy age-matched controls produced past and future events. Events were judged on emotional valence and plausibility characteristics. No differences in valence were found between MW and controls, although a positive emotional bias toward the future was observed. Strikingly, MW produced confabulations about future events that were significantly more implausible than those produced by healthy controls whereas MW and healthy controls produced past events comparable in plausibility. A neurocognitive explanation is offered based on differences between remembering and imagining. Possible implications of this single case in relation to confabulation and mental time travel are discussed.
Studies exploring mental time travel commonly use cue word paradigms to elicit past and future au... more Studies exploring mental time travel commonly use cue word paradigms to elicit past and future autobiographical events. However, the effect of trial duration (how long participants are allowed to describe events) on the relationship between episodic and non-episodic detail and episodic specificity (i.e. whether longer durations increase event specificity) has not been examined. To resolve these issues, a cue word study was devised whereby participants described past and future events under three randomly administered time constraints: short (1 min), standard (3 min), and long (5 min) durations. Findings indicated that an individual’s capacity for episodic and non-episodic thought for the past and future were unrelated. This lends supports to the idea that independent mechanisms are responsible for episodic and semantic information. This study also offers clarity concerning the effect of different trial durations on episodic specificity which may aid the design of future studies of mental time travel.
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Papers by Scott Cole
Design Single case study of neurological patient HCM and an age-matched comparison group of neurologically healthy controls.
Methods We administered a full battery of tests assessing general intelligence, memory and executive functioning. To assess autobiographical memory, the Autobiographical Memory Interview (Kopelman, Wilson & Baddeley, 1990) was administered. The Past Episodic and Future Episodic sections of Dalla Barba’s Confabulation Battery (Dalla Barba, 1993) and a specifically tailored Mental Time Travel Questionnaire were administered to assess future thinking in HCM and age-matched controls.
Results HCM presented with a deficit in forming new memories (anterograde amnesia) and recalling events from before the onset of neurological impairment (retrograde amnesia). HCM’s autobiographical memory impairments are characterised by a paucity of memories from recent life. In comparison with controls, two features of his future thoughts are apparent: Reduced episodic future thinking and outdated content of his episodic future thoughts.
Conclusions This paper suggests we should look beyond popular conceptualisations of the past-future relation in amnesia via focussing on reduced future thinking. Investigating both the quantity and quality of future thoughts produced by amnesic patients may lead to developments in understanding the complex nature of future thinking disorders resulting from memory impairments.
Teaching Documents by Scott Cole
Design Single case study of neurological patient HCM and an age-matched comparison group of neurologically healthy controls.
Methods We administered a full battery of tests assessing general intelligence, memory and executive functioning. To assess autobiographical memory, the Autobiographical Memory Interview (Kopelman, Wilson & Baddeley, 1990) was administered. The Past Episodic and Future Episodic sections of Dalla Barba’s Confabulation Battery (Dalla Barba, 1993) and a specifically tailored Mental Time Travel Questionnaire were administered to assess future thinking in HCM and age-matched controls.
Results HCM presented with a deficit in forming new memories (anterograde amnesia) and recalling events from before the onset of neurological impairment (retrograde amnesia). HCM’s autobiographical memory impairments are characterised by a paucity of memories from recent life. In comparison with controls, two features of his future thoughts are apparent: Reduced episodic future thinking and outdated content of his episodic future thoughts.
Conclusions This paper suggests we should look beyond popular conceptualisations of the past-future relation in amnesia via focussing on reduced future thinking. Investigating both the quantity and quality of future thoughts produced by amnesic patients may lead to developments in understanding the complex nature of future thinking disorders resulting from memory impairments.