Time-conjunctive representations of future events.
It is widely accepted that people can predict the relative imminence of future events. However, it is unknown whether the timing of future events is represented using only a "strength-like" estimate or if future events are represented conjunctively with their position on a mental timeline. We examin...
| Published in: | Memory & Cognition Vol. 48; no. 4; pp. 672 - 683 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Springer Nature
May2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=143359569&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 143359569 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0090502X MEG jtl: Memory & Cognition issn: 0090502X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: May2020 vid: 48 iid: 4 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 143359569 10.3758/s13421-019-00999-1 ppf: 672 ppct: 11 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.1MB tig: atl: Time-conjunctive representations of future events. aug: au: Babcock, Stuart W. Howard, Marc W. McGuire, Joseph T. affil: Graduate Program for Neuroscience, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA Center for Systems Neuroscience, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA su: Cognition Forecasting Memory Task performance Probability theory sug: subj: Cognition Forecasting Memory Task performance Probability theory keyword: Predictive inference Prospection Sequence learning Temporal cognition Predictive inference Prospection Sequence learning Temporal cognition ab: It is widely accepted that people can predict the relative imminence of future events. However, it is unknown whether the timing of future events is represented using only a "strength-like" estimate or if future events are represented conjunctively with their position on a mental timeline. We examined how people judge temporal relationships among anticipated future events using the novel Judgment of Anticipated Co-Occurrence (JACO) task. Participants were initially trained on a stream of letters sampled from a probabilistically repeating sequence. During test trials, the stream was interrupted with pairs of probe letters and the participants' task was to choose the probe letter they expected to appear in the stream during a lagged target window 4–6 items (4.3–8.5 s) in the future. Participants performed above chance as they gained experience with the task. Because the correct item was sometimes the more imminent probe letter and other times the less imminent probe letter, these results rule out the possibility that participants relied solely on thresholding a strength-like estimate of temporal imminence. Rather, these results suggest that participants held (1) temporally organized predictions of the future letters in the stream, (2) a temporal estimate of the lagged target window, and (3) some means to compare the two and evaluate their temporal alignment. Response time increased with the lag to the more imminent probe letter, suggesting that participants accessed the future sequentially in a manner that mirrors scanning processes previously proposed to operate on memory representations in the short-term judgment of recency task. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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