Brunette Amanda M, Calamia Matthew, Black Jenah, Tranel Daniel
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
Arch Clin Neuropsychol. 2019 May 1;34(3):403-417. doi: 10.1093/arclin/acy049.
Episodic future thinking is the ability to mentally project oneself into the future. This construct has been explored extensively in cognitive neuroscience and may be relevant for adaptive functioning. However, it has not been determined whether the measurement of episodic future thinking might be valuable in a clinical neuropsychological setting. The current study investigated (1) the relationship between episodic future thinking and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs); and (2) whether episodic future thinking is related to IADLs over and above standard measures of cognition.
Sixty-one older adults with heterogeneous neurological conditions and 41 healthy older adults completed a future thinking task (the adapted Autobiographical Interview), a performance-based measure of instrumental activities of daily living (the Independent Living Scales), and standard clinical measures of memory and executive functioning.
Episodic future thinking significantly predicted IADLs after accounting for age, education, gender, and depression (increase in R2 = .050, p = .010). Episodic future thinking significantly predicted IADLs over and above executive functioning (increase in R2 = .025, p = .030), but was not predictive of IADLs over and above memory (p = .157).
This study suggests that episodic future thinking is significantly associated with IADLs, beyond what can be accounted for by executive functioning. However, episodic future thinking did not predict IADLs over and above memory. Overall, there is limited evidence for the clinical utility of episodic future thinking. The findings suggest that an episodic future thinking task does not provide enough valuable information about IADLs to justify its inclusion in a clinical neuropsychological setting.
情景式未来思维是一种在脑海中将自己投射到未来的能力。这一概念在认知神经科学中已得到广泛研究，可能与适应性功能有关。然而，尚未确定情景式未来思维的测量在临床神经心理学环境中是否有价值。本研究调查了：（1）情景式未来思维与日常生活工具性活动（IADL）之间的关系；（2）情景式未来思维是否在认知的标准测量之外与IADL相关。
61名患有不同神经系统疾病的老年人和41名健康老年人完成了一项未来思维任务（改编后的自传式访谈）、一项基于表现的日常生活工具性活动测量（独立生活量表）以及记忆和执行功能的标准临床测量。
在考虑年龄、教育程度、性别和抑郁因素后，情景式未来思维显著预测了IADL（R²增加 = 0.050，p = 0.010）。情景式未来思维在执行功能之外显著预测了IADL（R²增加 = 0.025，p = 0.030），但在记忆之外对IADL没有预测作用（p = 0.157）。
本研究表明，情景式未来思维与IADL显著相关，超出了执行功能所能解释的范围。然而，情景式未来思维在记忆之外并未预测IADL。总体而言，情景式未来思维临床效用的证据有限。研究结果表明，情景式未来思维任务无法提供足够关于IADL的有价值信息，不足以证明将其纳入临床神经心理学环境的合理性。
