سفر ذهنی در زمان در بیقراری: تفاوت در محتوا و تجربه ذهنی از قسمت های گذشته و آینده

Previous research has shown that depressed individuals demonstrate a number of biases in their ability to retrieve past events and simulate future events. The current study investigated the content and phenomenological experience of past and future events in dysphoric and non-dysphoric individuals. Results indicated that dysphoric, compared with non-dysphoric, individuals reported fewer positive events across both temporal directions. Furthermore, phenomenological characteristics ratings suggested that dysphoric individuals saw future, but not past, events as less vivid, coherent, sensorially detailed, bodily experienced, emotionally intense and important with respect to their life story and identity. These findings are discussed with reference to theories regarding the functions of ‘mental time travel’, in particular how the muted subjective experience of future episodes in depression may impair future planning, problem-solving and self regulation.

Cognitive theories of depression (e.g. Beck, 1987) place emphasis on biases in thinking, with a triad of negativity centred on the self, the world, and the future. One area of cognition within which this model has been investigated is autobiographical thinking, which includes both the individual’s concept of the self and their interpretation of events that have, or might yet, happen within their lives. Autobiographical thinking incorporates the ability to vividly mentally ‘time travel’ into both one’s personal past and future. These processes require an individual to recall and manipulate episodic information held within autobiographical memory to reconstruct past experiences or simulate potential future experiences.