Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK.
Memory. 2013;21(2):157-66. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2012.712976. Epub 2012 Aug 20.
Recent research has revealed that episodic memory (remembering past experiences) and episodic future thinking (imagining future experiences) rely on the same underlying neuro-cognitive system. Consistent with this suggestion, individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been shown to experience difficulties in both domains. In the present study 18 adults with ASD and 18 typical adults performed sentence completion tasks assessing the ability to generate past and future events. Contrary to previous research findings, results demonstrated that adults with ASD performed at an equivalent level to typical adults when generating both past and future events; generating a higher number of specific events when recalling past (relative to simulating future) events, and a higher number of semantic associates when simulating future (relative to recalling past) events. Results are discussed with respect to methodological factors affecting task performance in ASD including the social nature of the research, the need to verbalise memories to the experimenter, and whether or not the specific memory request is explicit.
最近的研究表明，情景记忆（回忆过去的经历）和情景未来思维（想象未来的经历）依赖于相同的基础神经认知系统。这一观点得到了证实，患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的个体在这两个领域都存在困难。在本研究中，18 名 ASD 成年人和 18 名典型成年人完成了句子完成任务，评估了生成过去和未来事件的能力。与之前的研究结果相反，结果表明，ASD 成年人在生成过去和未来事件时的表现与典型成年人相当；在回忆过去（相对于模拟未来）事件时，生成更多具体的事件，而在模拟未来（相对于回忆过去）事件时，生成更多语义联想。结果将根据影响 ASD 任务表现的方法学因素进行讨论，包括研究的社会性、向实验者表达记忆的必要性，以及具体的记忆请求是否明确。
