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Incredible! How does the brain work to allow time travel? Uncover the mystery
In psychology, the ability to mentally time travel allows us to reconstruct personal events in the past (i.e., episodic memory) and imagine possible scenarios in the future (i.e., futurethinking). The term was coined by Thomas Schedendorf and Michael Corballis, based on Endel Tulving's research on episodic memory. As psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, philosophers, and other academic fields conduct research, various aspects of mental time travel are gaining increasing attention, including the relationship between memory and future prospects and the unique evolutionary background of humans.
Mental time travel is a uniquely human ability that allows us not only to recall the past, but also to envision the future.
Overview, terminology, and relationship to other cognitive abilities
According to Tulving's definition, declarative memory includes semantic memory and autobiographical details, the former being knowledge about the world and the latter being descriptions of personal experiences. He believes that episodic memory requires a kind of "self-awareness" consciousness, which is in sharp contrast to the "cognitive" consciousness of semantic memory. Recent research suggests that episodic memory and future thinking complement each other and are closely linked.
Brain regions and mental time travel
Various neuroimaging studies have revealed the brain systems involved in mental time travel in adults. Early functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have shown that there is a high degree of overlap in brain activity when recalling past experiences and imagining future experiences.
The study found that the left hippocampus and right middle posterior occipital cortex were significantly activated when reconstructing past events and imagining future events, while the right hippocampus was significantly deactivated when reconstructing past events.
Future thinking involves multiple component processes, including recalling and integrating relevant information, processing of subjective time, and processing of self-reference. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex were most active when imagining events involving personal goals, suggesting that these brain regions play a key role in personal goal processing.
Evolution and Human Uniqueness
The ability to mentally time travel is thought to have played a key role in the evolution of the human body, allowing humans to foresee and shape the future. However, the question of whether non-human animals can perform mental time travel remains controversial. Many studies have suggested that some animals, such as apes and birds, may possess some form of mental time travel, but this has also faced various challenges and criticisms.
Time Travel in Children's Developing Minds
Research shows that children begin to develop the ability to mentally time travel at a young age, and usually by around age four, children are able to talk clearly about future scenarios. Prior to this, even young children were able to make some degree of reports and predictions about upcoming events.
The development of the ability to time travel mentally helps children improve their cognitive and social skills, further promoting their overall development.
Measuring Mental Time Travel
In measuring mental time travel, episodic memory and future thinking are often assessed. Researchers have measured these two concepts differently, but the correlation between these methods still needs to be improved and validated.
In studies of adults, participants are often asked to recall past events, and future thinking is measured using many similar measures, but without measuring accuracy. Therefore, future research in this area should focus more on behavioral experiments to obtain more objective results.
As some studies have suggested, mental time travel is not just about looking back at the past, but also about contemplating the future.
In psychological research, the ability of the mind to time travel not only profoundly affects the social life of individuals, but also has a profound impact on the evolution of human thinking. How will this ability change our understanding and interpretation of time?
