Warden Elizabeth Ann, Plimpton Benjamin, Kvavilashvili Lia
Department of Psychology and Sport Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts, AL10 9AB, UK.
Psychol Res. 2019 Jun;83(4):727-746. doi: 10.1007/s00426-018-1103-7. Epub 2018 Sep 29.
Previous research on voluntary mental time travel (i.e., deliberately thinking about the past or future) has resulted in negative age effects. In contrast, studies on spontaneous past thoughts (i.e., involuntary autobiographical memories) have reported small or no age effects. The aim of the present research was to investigate the effects of age on the nature and frequency of spontaneous future thoughts in everyday life. In two studies, we examined whether older adults reported spontaneous future thoughts as often as younger adults, and whether these thoughts were predominantly goal-oriented and less dependent on incidental cues than thoughts about the past. In Study 1, young and old participants kept a diary of spontaneous thoughts of upcoming prospective memory tasks and involuntary autobiographical memories for 2 weeks. In Study 2, a 1-day experience sampling method was used to investigate spontaneous and deliberate task-unrelated future and past thoughts, by having young and old participants complete a questionnaire in response to 30 random signals. In both studies, no age effects were found in the frequency of spontaneous future thoughts, which were reported as frequently as thoughts about the past (Study 2) and referred predominantly to upcoming tasks and goals rather than future events or hypothetical events (Study 2). Results concerning the triggers of reported thoughts provide initial support for the idea that representations of future thoughts may be more activated than memories of past events. Taken together, these results have important implications for research on cognitive ageing, mind-wandering, prospective memory and involuntary autobiographical memories.
以往关于自愿性心理时光旅行（即刻意回想过去或未来）的研究发现了年龄的负面影响。相比之下，关于自发性过去思维（即非自愿的自传体记忆）的研究报告称年龄影响较小或不存在年龄影响。本研究的目的是调查年龄对日常生活中自发性未来思维的性质和频率的影响。在两项研究中，我们考察了老年人报告自发性未来思维的频率是否与年轻人一样高，以及这些思维是否比关于过去的思维更主要地以目标为导向且更少依赖偶然线索。在研究1中，年轻和年长的参与者连续两周记录即将到来的前瞻性记忆任务的自发性思维以及非自愿的自传体记忆。在研究2中，采用为期一天的经验抽样法，让年轻和年长的参与者根据30个随机信号完成一份问卷，以调查与任务无关的自发性和刻意性未来及过去思维。在两项研究中，均未发现自发性未来思维频率存在年龄差异，其报告频率与关于过去的思维一样高（研究2），且主要涉及即将到来的任务和目标，而非未来事件或假设事件（研究2）。关于所报告思维触发因素的结果为未来思维表征可能比过去事件记忆更易被激活这一观点提供了初步支持。综上所述，这些结果对认知老化、走神、前瞻性记忆和非自愿自传体记忆的研究具有重要意义。
