School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2020 Jan;24(1):52-64. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2019.10.009. Epub 2019 Dec 20.
Humans can imagine what happened in the past and what will happen in the future, but also what did not happen and what might happen. We reflect on envisioned events from alternative timelines, while knowing that we only ever live on one timeline. Considering alternative timelines rests on representations of temporal junctures, or points in time at which possible versions of reality diverge. These representations become increasingly sophisticated over childhood, first enabling preparation for mutually exclusive future possibilities and later the experience of counterfactual emotions like regret. By contrast, it remains unclear whether non-human animals represent temporal junctures at all. The emergence of these representations may have been a prime mover in human evolution.
人类可以想象过去发生了什么、未来会发生什么，还可以想象未曾发生和可能发生的事情。我们会从不同的时间线去反思设想中的事件，而我们实际上只生活在一条时间线上。对不同时间线的思考依赖于时间节点的表示，即现实的可能版本出现分歧的时间点。这些表示在儿童时期变得越来越复杂，首先能够为相互排斥的未来可能性做好准备，后来则能够体验到后悔等反事实情绪。相比之下，目前尚不清楚非人类动物是否能够表示时间节点。这些表示的出现可能是人类进化的主要动力。
