Individuals with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulties in the recollection of past experiences (Episodic Memory). Accumulating evidence suggests that they might have also difficulties in the ability to imagine potential future scenarios (Episodic Future Thinking, EFT) and in narrative generation skills. This investigation aimed to determine 1) whether impairments of EFT can be identified in a large cohort of children with high functioning ASD using a task with minimal narrative demands; and 2) if such impairments are (...) related to the ability to generate a narrative's scenario. 77 children with high-functioning ASD and 77 children with typical development were recruited for the study. The two groups were balanced for age, level of formal education, and IQ. EFT was assessed by administering a task with minimal narrative demands, whereas narrative generation skills were assessed with three tasks requiring children to generate past, middle or future episodes in a narrative discourse. With respect to control participants, a subgroup of children with ASD had impaired EFT skills and also showed significant impairments in the ability to generate adequate narratives. On the contrary, participants with spared EFT had normal performance on the narrative generation task. Interestingly, EFT skills predicted narrative generation abilities in both groups. The results of this study support the hypothesis that EFT may be impaired in some but not all children with ASD and of a relation between difficulties with EFT and impairments in the process of narrative generation. The assessment of EFT should employ tasks that do not require narrative production, as children with impaired EFT may also have reduced narrative skills. (shrink)

Assessing children's episodic future thinking by having them select items for future use may be assessing their functional reasoning about the future rather than their future episodic thinking. In an attempt to circumvent this problem, we capitalised on the fact that episodic cognition necessarily has a spatial format (Clayton & Russell, 2009; Hassabis & Maguire, 2007). Accordingly, we asked children of 3, 4, and 5 to chose items they would need to play a game (...) (blow football) from the opposite side of the table on which they had never before played. The crucial item was the box that was needed by children to reach the table from the other side. Over four experiments, we demonstrated that, while children of 3 perform poorly on future questions and children of 5 generally perform quite well, children of 4 years find a question about what they themselves will need to play in the future harder to answer than a similar question posed about another child. We suggest that this result is due to the 'growth error' of over-applying newly-developed Level 2 perspective-taking skills (Flavell et al., 1981), which encourages the selection of non-functional items. The data are discussed in terms of perspective-taking abilities in children and of the neural correlates of episodic cognition, navigation, and theory of mind. (shrink)

This chapter considers in what sense, if any, planning and future thinking is involved both in the sort of behaviour examined by McCarty et al. (1999) and in the sort of behaviour measured by researchers creating versions of Tulving's spoon test. It argues that mature human planning and future thinking involves a particular type of temporal cognition, and that there are reasons to be doubtful as to whether either of those two approaches actually assesses this type (...) of cognition. To anticipate, it argues that there is a commonsense notion of planning according to which planning involves event-independent thought about time. It also argues that thinking about the future involves the ability to think about the potential temporal locations of events within a linear temporal framework in which temporal locations are unique rather than repeated. (shrink)

We investigated the contributions of familiarity of setting, self-relevance and self-projection in time to episodic future thinking. The role of familiarity of setting was assessed, in Experiment 1, by comparing episodic future thoughts to autobiographical future events supposed to occur in unfamiliar settings. The role of self-relevance was assessed, in Experiment 2, by comparing episodic future thoughts to future events involving familiar others. The role of self-projection in time was assessed, in both Experiments, by (...) comparing episodic future thoughts to autobiographical events that were not temporal in nature. Results indicated that episodic future thoughts were more clearly represented than autobiographical future events occurring in unfamiliar setting and future events involving familiar others. Our results also revealed that episodic future thoughts were indistinguishable from autobiographical atemporal events with respect to both subjective and objective detail ratings. These results suggest that future and atemporal events are mentally represented in a similar way. (shrink)

Chronic pain is associated with high levels of mental health issues and alterations in cognitive processing. Cognitive-behavioral models illustrate the role of memory alterations in the development and maintenance of chronic pain as well as in mental health disorders which frequently co-occur with chronic pain. This study aims to expand our understanding of specific cognitive mechanisms underlying chronic pain which may in turn shed light on cognitive processes underlying pain-related psychological distress. Individuals who reported a history of chronic pain and (...) individuals who reported no history of chronic pain were recruited from MTurk to complete an online survey including standardized measures of anxiety and depression and two sentence completion tasks that assessed autobiographical memory and future thinking specificity and content. Chi square analyses revealed that participants who endorsed experiencing chronic pain were significantly more likely to recall at least one painful and negative event and to imagine at least one anticipated painful event in their future. Two ANCOVAs were performed to examine the degree to which chronic pain endorsement influenced specificity in memory and future imagining. Individuals with a history of chronic pain and higher levels of depression symptom severity generated autobiographical memories with significantly less specificity; whereas, individuals with a history of chronic pain also generated future autobiographical events with significantly less specificity. In addition, individuals with a history of chronic pain were more likely to generate episodes related to pain when asked to recall the past or imagine the future. Further research is needed to improve our understanding of the etiology of autobiographical memory and future thinking specificity and content in the pathogenesis of mental health conditions in the context of chronic pain. (shrink)

Adult-based suicide theories have determined much of what we know about suicidal ideation. Here, we investigate the extent to which elements of theIntegrated Motivational-Volitional(IMV) model generalize to adolescence, a period when rates of suicidal ideation increase dramatically. In a sample of community-based adolescents (n= 74), we tested whether defeat and entrapment related to suicidal ideation, and whether poor positive future thinking abilities exacerbated this association. Consistent with the IMV model, we found that defeat/entrapment was associated specifically with history (...) of suicidal ideation, and not with history of suicide attempt. Defeat/entrapment was related to baseline suicidal ideation severity above and beyond depressive symptoms. While defeat/entrapment predicted future suicidal ideation controlling for history of ideation, it did not do so controlling for depressive symptoms. Counter to the IMV model, we initially found that the association between defeat/entrapment and suicidal ideation was strongest among adolescents withgreaterpositive future thinking abilities. This was driven by the tendency to imagine more positive future events, particularly those that are less realistic and achievable. These findings call for a more nuanced understanding of defeat/entrapment and positive future thinking among adolescents, particularly in how they interact to predict recurrent suicidal ideation. (shrink)

Is the capacity to experience hope central to our ability to entertain desirable future possibilities in thought? The ability to project oneself forward in time, or to entertain vivid positive episodic future thoughts, is impaired in patients with clinical depression. In this article, I consider the causal relation between, on the one hand, the loss of the affective experience of hope in depressed patients, and on the other hand, the reduced ability to generate and entertain positive episodic (...) class='Hi'>future thinking. I suggest that findings in the philosophy of emotion may shed light on this causal relation. (shrink)

Prior studies have shown that people imagine their personal future to be more positive than their country’s collective future. The present research extends the nascent literature by examining the valence and perceived control of personal and national future events in a new experimental paradigm, the cultural generalizability of the findings, and the relation of future thinking to psychological well-being. US college students (Study 1) and US and Turkish community participants (Study 2) imagined what might happen (...) to them and their country in three time points (i.e., next week, next year, and in 10–15 years). They then rated the emotional valence and perceived control of the events and completed a psychological well-being measure. Both US and Turkish participants imagined their personal future to be more positive than their country’s future, whereas they attributed higher perceived control to their countries for national future events than to themselves for personal future events. The positivity of national (Study 1) and personal future events (Study 2) predicted better psychological well-being, whereas perceived control did not. These original findings enrich our theoretical understanding of future thinking. (shrink)

Acting in the present in anticipation of the future is argued to be a behavioral correlate of mental time travel (MTT). Yet, it is important to consider how other future-directed behaviors figure into a theory of MTT and future thinking more broadly. Developmental science can help in this formulation.

This study explored spatial navigation alongside several other cognitive abilities that are thought to share common underlying neurocognitive mechanisms (e.g., the capacity for self-projection, scene construction, or mental simulation), and which we hypothesised may be impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Twenty intellectually high-functioning children with ASD (with a mean age of ~8 years) were compared to 20 sex, age, IQ, and language ability matched typically developing children on a series of tasks to assess spatial navigation, episodic memory, episodic (...) class='Hi'>future thinking (also known as episodic foresight or prospection), theory of mind, relational memory, and central coherence. This is the first study to explore these abilities concurrently within the same sample. Spatial navigation was assessed using the “memory island” task, which involves finding objects within a realistic, computer simulated, three-dimensional environment. Episodic memory and episodic future thinking were assessed using a past and future event description task. Theory of mind was assessed using the “animations” task, in which children were asked to describe the interactions between two animated triangles. Relational memory was assessed using a recognition task involving memory for items (line drawings), patterned backgrounds, or combinations of items and backgrounds. Central coherence was assessed by exploring differences in performance across segmented and unsegmented versions of block design. Children with ASD were found to show impairments in spatial navigation, episodic memory, episodic future thinking, and central coherence, but not theory of mind or relational memory. Among children with ASD, spatial navigation was found to be significantly negatively related to number of repetitive behaviours. In other words, children who showed more repetitive behaviours showed poorer spatial navigation. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed. (shrink)

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for online counseling to preserve therapeutic processes that have begun face to face and to provide service to others in need during lockdowns. Previous studies underscored the importance of providing updated training as counselors frequently hesitate to use technological advances in therapeutic sessions. This study aims at reducing such barriers by revealing personal characteristics of future professionals that might inhibit or encourage their openness toward providing online counseling. To this (...) end, this study is focused on several precursors of openness to provide online counseling: preference to communicate emotions online, identification of emotional expressiveness advantages in providing online counseling, innovative behavior, creativity, and future problem-solving thinking skills. The question at focus is which constructs would be found contributive to students’ openness to provide online counseling. The sample included 277 undergraduate students who filled out questionnaires. Data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling. Our findings pointed to the centrality of students’ preference to communicate their emotions online in explaining their openness to conducting online counseling. This study might help pinpointing the adjustments curriculum designers should address to better reflect the intensive changes within the counseling field that necessitate transferring face-to-face skills to online settings. (shrink)

Research using explicit measures has linked decreased positive future thinking, but not increased negative future thinking, with clinical depression. However, individuals may be unable or unwilling to express thoughts about the future, and can be unaware of implicit beliefs that can influence their behavior. Implicit measures of cognition may shed light on the role of future thinking in depression. To our knowledge, the current study presents the first implicit measure of positive and negative (...) future thinking. A sample of 71 volunteers completed both implicit and explicit measures of positive and negative future thinking. The findings indicate differences in the evaluation of both positive and negative future events between the two groups. However, group differences were more pronounced on the implicit measure. These findings point to the potential utility of an implicit measure of future thinking in mental health research and clinical practice. (shrink)

This study investigates all available literature related to critical thinking in business education in a survey of publications in the field produced from 1990-2019. It conducts a thematic analysis of 787 articles found in Web of Science and Google Scholar, including a specific focus on 55 highly-cited articles. The aim is to investigate the importance of critical thinking in business education, how it is conceptualised in business education research, the business contexts in which critical thinking is situated, (...) and the key and more marginal themes related to critical thinking outlined in the business and business education literature. The paper outlines six key areas and topics associated with those areas. It suggests future directions for further scholarly work in the area of critical thinking in business education. (shrink)

There is a problematic tradition of dualistic and reductionist thinking in artificial intelligence (AI) research, which is evident in AI storytelling and imaginations as well as in public debates about AI. Dualistic thinking is based on the assumption of a fixed reality and a hierarchy of power, and it simplifies the complex relationships between humans and machines. This commentary piece argues that we need to work against the grain of such logics and instead develop a thinking that (...) acknowledges AI–human interconnectedness and the complexity in such relations. To learn how to live better with AI in futures to come, the paper suggests an AI politics that turns to practices of serious attentiveness to help us re-imagine our machines and re-configure AI–human relations. (shrink)

By the end of the 21st century humans could have increasingly bionic bodies with greatly enhanced brains and sensory organs. They could be spending their abundant leisure in a variety of richly detailed, stimulating worlds provided by virtual reality technology, while computers and robots of various kinds do their work for them. What should we think of this prospect?

This introduction presents a state of the art of philosophical research on cognitive phenomenology and its relation to the nature of conscious thinking more generally. We firstly introduce the question of cognitive phenomenology, the motivation for the debate, and situate the discussion within the fields of philosophy, cognitive psychology and consciousness studies. Secondly, we review the main research on the question, which we argue has so far situated the cognitive phenomenology debate around the following topics and arguments: phenomenal contrast, (...) epistemic arguments and challenges, introspection, ontology and temporal character, intentionality, inner speech, agency, holistic perspective, categorical perception, value, and phenomenological description. Thirdly, we suggest future developments by pointing to four questions that can be explored in relation to the cognitive phenomenology discussion: the self and self-awareness, attention, emotions and general the... (shrink)

Phylogenetic trees are meant to represent the genealogical history of life and apparently derive their justification from the existence of the tree of life and the fact that evolutionary processes are treelike. However, there are a number of problems for these assumptions. Here it is argued that once we understand the important role that phylogenetic trees play as models that contain idealizations, we can accept these criticisms and deny the reality of the tree while justifying the continued use of trees (...) in phylogenetic theory and preserving nearly all of what defenders of trees have called the “importance of tree thinking.”. (shrink)

Charles Fourier propounded a socialist and, at the same time, libertarian utopia: a harmonious project of living together in solidarity, of cooperative work and sexual freedom. Historians interested in its reception in Spain have underlined the lack of thinkers capable of developing Fourier’s thinking along original lines or from a certain theoretical level. Moreover, it has been affirmed that Fourier’s original doctrine was impoverished in Spain because it was stripped of a large part of its utopian aspects and reduced (...) to a doctrinaire framework for social criticism and reform.1 Nonetheless, the evolution of Spanish Fourierism is comparable to that which the movement underwent in other countries, including France.. (shrink)

This article addresses a debate in Descartes scholarship over the mind-dependence or -independence of time by turning to Merleau-Ponty’s "Nature" and "The Visible and the Invisible." In doing so, it shows that both sides of the debate ignore that time for Descartes is a measure of duration in general. The consequences to remembering what time is are that the future is shown to be the invisible of an intertwining of past and future, and that historicity is the invisible (...) of God. (shrink)

The wide presence of the right to work in national and international legal texts contrasts with a lack of agreement about the concrete content of this right. According to the hegemonic interpretation, it consists of two elements: extension of wage labour and significant improvement of working conditions. However, if we study the history of right to work claims, especially from the French Revolution to 1848, we can notice that the meaning of this right was rather wider in the past. Rescuing (...) the historical significance of the right to work may help to face the problem of the future of work. In particular, and unlike what might seem at first sight, the claim that everyone should have his or her right to work guaranteed can be a way of articulating and concretizing issues such as workplace democracy, the organization of domestic work or the transition to a sustainable society. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;Kant's fundamental problematic is the articulation of a finite rationality. The central problematic of the finitude of reason is how to think of a manner of thinking which is appropriate to a finite being. The relevant aspect of the finitude of a finite being is its temporality: a finite being is a temporal historical being. A finite rationality will, therefore, be a manner of thinking appropriate to (...) this temporality--that is, it will be a temporal, mobile rationality. The mobility of this rationality must be conceived of as unending, otherwise it will ultimately be conceived of as static. This constant mobility is achieved in Kant's writing by relating thinking to ideals which can only be approached in infinite approximation. Against a non-finite conception of reason as oriented by the present, Kant's conception of a finite rationality is one oriented by the future. However, this constant mobility--infinite approximation to a postulated ideal future--raises the question of how such a rationality can be conceived of positively: is not such a rationality a rationality of infinite defeat, a rationality of despair? If it is, then Kant will have not thought finitude, since a truly finite rationality--that is, a truly appropriate rationality--cannot be one which creates a negative self-conception. Such negativity reveals an inappropriate criterion, i.e., the opposite of what the question of finitude demands. So the central question of the finitude of reason is how to conceive of a manner of thinking which is temporal , and does not result in a negative self-conception. However these two demands seem to be exclusive. We will argue that this dilemma is addressed in Kant's attempt to articulate the finitude of reason by giving hope a central role in his account. In hope constant mobility can be embraced without leading to a negative self concept. For Kant, a finite rationality is ultimately a hopeful rationality. (shrink)