Harnessing Visual Imagery and Oculomotor Behaviour to Understand Prospection

Federica Conti; Muireann Irish

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2021.01.009

Harnessing Visual Imagery and Oculomotor Behaviour to Understand Prospection

Trends Cogn Sci. 2021 Apr;25(4):272-283. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.01.009. Epub 2021 Feb 19.

Authors

Federica Conti¹, Muireann Irish²

Affiliations

¹ Institut des Neurosciences de la Timone, Aix-Marseille University, 27 Boulevard Jean Moulin, 13005 Marseille, France; The University of Sydney, Brain and Mind Centre and School of Psychology, 94 Mallett Street, Camperdown, NSW 2050, Australia. Electronic address: federica.conti@univ-amu.fr.
² The University of Sydney, Brain and Mind Centre and School of Psychology, 94 Mallett Street, Camperdown, NSW 2050, Australia. Electronic address: muireann.irish@sydney.edu.au.

PMID: 33618981
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.01.009

Abstract

Much of the rich internal world constructed by humans is derived from, and experienced through, visual mental imagery. Despite growing appreciation of visual exploration in guiding episodic memory processes, extant theories of prospection have yet to accommodate the precise role of visual mental imagery in the service of future-oriented thinking. We propose that the construction of future events relies on the assimilation of perceptual details originally experienced, and subsequently reinstantiated, predominantly in the visual domain. Individual differences in the capacity to summon discrete aspects of visual imagery can therefore account for the diversity of content generated by humans during future simulation. Our integrative framework provides a novel testbed to query alterations in future thinking in health and disease.

Keywords: default mode network; episodic memory; future thinking; hippocampus; imagination; visual mental imagery.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Eye Movements
Humans
Imagination
Memory, Episodic*
Mental Recall
Thinking