Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2018 Mar;147(3):354-376. doi: 10.1037/xge0000408.
Why do some events feel "like yesterday" whereas others feel "ages away"? Past research has identified cues that influence people's estimates of distance in units such as how many miles or days away events are from the self. However, what makes events feel psychologically close or distant? We examine the hypothesis that increased simulational fluency, the ease with which people mentally imagine events, makes events feel psychologically close. Simulational fluency was associated with feelings that multiple past and future holidays were psychologically close (Studies 1a and 1b). Writing short, easy-to-generate descriptions of Christmas made it feel psychologically closer and more fluently simulated compared with writing longer, difficult-to-generate descriptions (Study 2). This pattern was not anticipated by readers of the same content who did not directly experience the fluency of writing descriptions. Writing descriptions of Halloween made it feel fluently simulated and psychologically close, even as concrete "how" descriptions reduced construal level compared with abstract "why" descriptions (Study 3). Listening to a fluent audio description of a past Super Bowl, compared with a disfluent audio description, caused the game to feel psychologically closer in both space and time (Study 4). Reading a description of the Super Bowl in easy-to-read font, compared with difficult-to-read font, made the game feel more fluently simulated and psychologically closer (Study 5). These findings have implications for theories of psychological distance and its role in everyday life. (PsycINFO Database Record
为什么有些事件感觉“就像昨天”，而有些事件感觉“很久以前”？过去的研究已经确定了一些线索，这些线索会影响人们对距离的估计，例如事件与自身的距离是多少英里或天数。然而，是什么让事件感觉心理上接近或遥远？我们检验了这样一种假设，即增加模拟流畅度，即人们在心理上想象事件的容易程度，会使事件感觉心理上更接近。模拟流畅度与人们对过去和未来多个假期的感觉心理上接近有关（研究 1a 和 1b）。与写更长、更难生成的描述相比，写简短、容易生成的圣诞节描述会让人感觉心理上更接近，模拟起来也更流畅（研究 2）。这种模式并没有被阅读相同内容的读者所预料到，因为他们没有直接体验到写作描述的流畅性。写万圣节的描述会让人感觉模拟起来很流畅，心理上也很接近，即使具体的“如何”描述比抽象的“为什么”描述降低了构念水平（研究 3）。与不流畅的音频描述相比，听过去超级碗的流畅音频描述会让人感觉比赛在空间和时间上都更接近（研究 4）。与阅读难读字体的超级碗描述相比，阅读易读字体的描述会让人感觉比赛模拟起来更流畅，心理上也更接近（研究 5）。这些发现对心理距离理论及其在日常生活中的作用具有启示意义。
