Week 1 (Intro and Mental Time Travel) Flashcards
Types of autobiographical memory
-Facts and events that have been interpreted into a story about the self
-Specific (e.g., a trip to the theme park)
-General (e.g., a holiday)
-Repeated events (e.g., going to the dentist every 6 months)
-Personal semantic info (e.g., info about family)
Prospective Cognition
-Mental representation of possible futures
-Predictions about future events
-Planning for future events
-Future-oriented problem solving
Taxonomy of Prospection
Scale from Episodic to Semantic
-Simulation
-Prediction
-Intention
-Planning
Episodic Simulation
-Our ability to pre-experience the future by simulating it in our minds
-Contains episodic details like associated emotions, time and place
-This construction relies heavily on memories, episodic memory!
-Future episodes take longer to construct, more general rather than specific.
-A core component of this is MENTAL IMAGERY
Mental Imagery
-Has specific links to emotion
-Flashbacks and Flash-forwards
-Appears to have a stronger effect on emotion
What is prediction
The expectations of and/or anticipated reactions to a particular outcome
What is distinction between episodic and semantic prediction
Episodic
-Estimating how likely it is that you will experience a graduation ceremony and how you may feel on that day
Semantic (abstract)
-Predicting who will win the general election
Affective Forecasts (prediction)
-Emotional reactions to future events
-Commonly predict that upcoming events will make them feel better or worse than they actually do (IMPACT BIAS)
Intention (Episodic and Semantic)
Intentions are the mental acts of goal setting
Episodic intentions: Achieve outcomes in the context of specific future events (I need to go to the shops on the way back from uni to pick up bread)
Semantic intentions: Encompass the setting of more general/ abstract goals (I need to think about what I hope to achieve by the end of my degree)
Planning (Episodic and Semantic)
Planning is the organisation tool of steps/actions towards the goal
Episodic- The steps needed in order to arrive at a specific episodic future outcome
Semantic: Setting more general or abstract steps needed in order for these goals to arise in the future
Simulation + Prediction Interaction
-Simulation of possible future event affects ones predictions regarding whether the event will actually occur
-Repeated simulation increases plausibility predictions for emotional events
-Ease of simulation & more detail = increased plausibility
Imagination Inflation Paradigm
-Individuals increase their confidence in fictitious events occurring after imagining that event, with this confidence/belief increasing the more times the event has been imagined
-Repeated simulation means it becomes more familiar and comes to mind more readily when later asked about it
Simulation and Planning
-Episodic simulation is useful in the planning of effective strategies
-Participants were then asked to simulate the process of working through a stressful event and others were asked to simulate a successful outcome
-One week later simulating the process of working through the problem = more positive affect & more active coping strategies
Effect of prospection on emotion
-Positive episodic simulation has been shown to enhance mood
Effect of prospection on psychological well being
-Important for psychological well being
-Focusing on positive hypotheticals may provide individuals with a sense of relief, or reduce their stress
Effect of prospection of social behaviour
-Can improve pro social behaviour
-People more likely to help someone if they envisioned it
-Imagining helping person in need increases intention to help compared to imagining something else
Beck’s cognitive theory of depression
-Biased thought process are a primary cause of depressive symptoms
-Triad of negativity where individuals hold negative views of the self, the world and the future
Cognitive theory of depression schemas
-Individuals vulnerable to depression have maladaptive schemas
*When dysfunctional schemas are activated
*Skew the information processing system
*Directs attention to negative stimuli
*Interpret that experience in a negative way
Autobiographical memory and depression
-Overgeneral memory
-Individuals have difficulty recalling specific, or episodic events from their past
-Content bias: negatively valenced thought content
-Overly attentive to negative situations and remember more negative information
-Take longer to recall positive autobiographical memories
-Less specific when describing pleasant memories
-Recollect using an observer perspective
-Lower vividness for positive events, however not for negative events
Prediction biases depression
-When asked to simulate the future, less likely to generate events that are episodic
-Lack of positive anticipation, but not necessarily increased negative anticipation
-Higher levels of depressive symptoms were associated with pessimistic predictions about goal achievement
-Reduced vividness
-Observer perspective
-Believed that goal achievement would bring them lower levels of positive emotion
-Less in-the-moment happiness, satisfaction, and pleasure when thinking about achieving goals
How to help prospection bias
CBT and socratic questions
-Help change clients pessimistic predictions of the future by coaching them to make accurate predictions
-Deal with automatic thoughts that distress the patient, by uncovering the assumptions and evidence that underpin a client’s thoughts
-AIm to help the client develop reasonable alternatives and evaluate potential consequences
What is cognitive bias modification
-General term adopted to refer to experimental and therapeutic techniques developed with the intention of directly manipulating a target cognitive bias
-Imagery to modify depressive bias and mood
