Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada.
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA.
Cognition. 2024 Jul;248:105807. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105807. Epub 2024 Apr 29.
Imagining the future, like recalling the past, relies on the ability to retrieve and imagine a spatial context. Research suggests that eye movements support this process by reactivating spatial contextual details from memory, a process termed gaze reinstatement. While gaze reinstatement has been linked to successful memory retrieval, it remains unclear whether it supports the related process of future simulation. In the present study, we recorded both eye movements and audio while participants described familiar locations from memory and subsequently imagined future events occurring in those locations while either freely moving their eyes or maintaining central fixation. Restricting viewing during simulation significantly reduced self-reported vividness ratings, supporting a critical role for eye movements in simulation. When viewing was unrestricted, participants spontaneously reinstated gaze patterns specific to the simulated location, replicating findings of gaze reinstatement during memory retrieval. Finally, gaze-based location reinstatement was predictive of simulation success, indexed by the number of internal (episodic) details produced, with both measures peaking early and co-varying over time. Together, these findings suggest that the same oculomotor processes that support episodic memory retrieval - that is, gaze-based reinstatement of spatial context - also support episodic simulation.
想象未来就像回忆过去一样，依赖于从记忆中检索和想象空间背景的能力。研究表明，眼球运动通过重新激活来自记忆的空间上下文细节来支持这个过程，这个过程被称为注视恢复。虽然注视恢复与成功的记忆检索有关，但尚不清楚它是否支持未来模拟的相关过程。在本研究中，我们在参与者从记忆中描述熟悉的地点并随后在这些地点自由移动眼睛或保持中央注视时想象未来事件发生时，同时记录了眼动和音频。在模拟过程中限制观看会显著降低自我报告的生动感评分，支持眼球运动在模拟中的关键作用。当观看不受限制时，参与者会自发地恢复与模拟位置相对应的注视模式，再现记忆检索过程中的注视恢复发现。最后，基于注视的位置恢复与模拟成功相关，由产生的内部（情节）细节数量来表示，这两个指标都在早期达到峰值，并随着时间的推移而变化。总之，这些发现表明，支持情节记忆检索的相同眼球运动过程——即基于注视的空间背景恢复——也支持情节模拟。
