University of Bochum, Faculty of Psychology, Behavioral and Clinical Neuroscience, Bochum, Germany.
Sorbonne Université, Institut de Biologie Paris-Seine, Paris, France.
Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2019 Oct;105:94-105. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.07.016. Epub 2019 Aug 2.
Humans spend the lion's share of their mental life either in their personal past or an anticipated or imagined future. This type of mental state is known as mental time travel. It is perhaps the most sophisticated and fitness-promoting cognition that has evolved in humans and with some reservation in animals. We have proposed that working memory capacity and the complexity of executive functions within working memory might limit the authenticity with which past events are reconstructed and anticipated or imagined future scenarios are constructed. In the present article, we discuss the possibility of a co-evolution between working memory capacity, complexity of executive functions available in the working memory workspace, and mental time travel abilities across species. We further assume that a complex working memory system can be constructed with quite different brains and conclude that the advanced cognitive function of thinking about the past and the future might not be a privilege of the mammalian brain.
人类在其精神生活中,大部分时间都花在个人的过去、预期或想象的未来上。这种心理状态被称为心理时间旅行。它可能是人类进化过程中最复杂和最有益于适应的认知,在动物中也有一定程度的表现。我们提出,工作记忆容量和工作记忆中执行功能的复杂性可能会限制对过去事件的真实重建以及对预期或想象的未来场景的构建。在本文中,我们讨论了工作记忆容量、工作记忆工作空间中可用的执行功能的复杂性以及跨物种的心理时间旅行能力之间共同进化的可能性。我们进一步假设,一个复杂的工作记忆系统可以用非常不同的大脑来构建,并得出结论,思考过去和未来的高级认知功能可能不是哺乳动物大脑的特权。