Inducing involuntary and voluntary mental time travel using a laboratory paradigm

Scott N. Cole, Søren R. Staugaard, Dorthe Berntsen

Although involuntary past and future mental time travel (MTT) has been examined outside the laboratory in diary studies, MTT has primarily been studied in the context of laboratory studies using voluntary construction tasks. In this study, we adapted and extended a paradigm previously used to elicit involuntary and voluntary memories (Schlagman & Kvavilashvili in Memory & Cognition, 36, 920-932, 2008). Our aim was - for the first time - to examine involuntary and voluntary future MTT under controlled laboratory conditions. The involuntary task involved a monotonous task that included potential cues for involuntary MTT. Temporal direction was manipulated between participants whereas retrieval mode was manipulated within participants. We replicated robust past-future differences, such as the future positivity bias. Additionally, we replicated key voluntary-involuntary differences: Involuntary future representations had similar characteristics as involuntary memories in that they were elicited faster, were more specific, and garnered more emotional impact than their voluntary counterparts. We also found that the future and past involuntary MTT led to both positive and negative mood impact, and that the valence of the impact was associated with the emotional valence of the event. This study advances scientific understanding of involuntary future representations in healthy populations and validates a laboratory paradigm that can be flexibly and systematically utilized to explore different characteristics of voluntary and involuntary MTT, which has not been possible within naturalistic paradigms.