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Remembering and imagining: The role of the self
Consciousness and Cognition 20 (2011) 1175–1182
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Remembering and imagining: The role of the self Clare J. Rathbone a,⇑, Martin A. Conway b, Chris J.A. Moulin b a b
Department of Psychology, University of Reading, England, UK Leeds Memory Group, Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, England, UK
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 11 October 2010 Available online 12 March 2011 Keywords: Autobiographical memory Imagining the future Self Identity
a b s t r a c t This study investigated whether temporal clustering of autobiographical memories (AMs) around periods of self-development (Rathbone, Moulin, & Conway, 2008, 2009) would also occur when imagining future events associated with the self. Participants completed an AM task and future thinking task. In both tasks, memories and future events were cued using participant-generated identity statements (e.g., I am a student; I will be a mother). Participants then dated their memories and future events, and finally gave an age at which each identity statement was judged to emerge. Dates of memories and future events were recoded as temporal distance from the identity statement used to cue them. AMs and future events both clustered robustly around periods of self-development, indicating the powerful organisational effect of the self. We suggest that life narrative structures are used to organise future events as well as memories. Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Our recollections of the past are not perfect records of experience. Rather, memory is a constructive process, prone to bias and errors. In light of this constructive nature, it is perhaps unsurprising that recent studies have revealed parallels between remembering the past and imagining the future. Neuroimaging research has shown overlaps in neural activity during remembering and imagining (e.g., Addis, Wong, & Schacter, 2007; Szpunar, Watson, & McDermott, 2007), indicating that these processes are based on a common constructive mechanism. Indeed, it has been suggested that the term ‘memory system’ be replaced with the term ‘remembering-imagining system’ in order to emphasise the constructive nature of remembering the past and imagining the future (Conway, 2009). Imagining the future (or ‘episodic future thought’, Atance & O’Neill, 2001) is a form of self-projection essential for human functioning. It is implicated in many every-day tasks, including planning, decision-making and navigation (Buckner & Carroll, 2007). Our ability to imagine the future enables us to construct an autobiographical life story that encompasses future goals and plans as well as memories, and in this way imagined future events can be highly autobiographical. Addis et al. (2007) found that both remembering and imagining engaged the autobiographical memory network, including left hippocampus and posterior visuospatial regions. The authors put forward a ‘constructive episodic simulation hypothesis’, which proposed that imagining future events requires that past events in memory are constructed into new scenarios. Similar overlaps have been found when people consider past and future selves. D’Argembeau et al. (2010) examined neural activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) when participants reflected on their current self, themselves in the past, and themselves in the future. Results indicated that thinking about the present self was associated with higher activity in the MPFC, compared to thinking about more temporally distant selves. Crucially, there was no significant difference in neural activity when ⇑ Corresponding author. Present address: Department of Psychology, School of Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Earley Gate, Reading RG6 6AL, UK. Fax: +44 (0)118 378 6715. E-mail address: [email protected] (C.J. Rathbone). 1053-8100/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2011.02.013
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thinking about past selves compared to future selves. Additional evidence for the close relationship between remembering and imagining comes from amnesic and depressed patients, whose difficulties in recalling specific details about the past are paralleled by impairments in imagining the future (e.g., Klein, Loftus, & Kihlstrom, 2002; Tulving, 1985; Williams et al., 1996). The relationship between the self and AM has long been a subject of study (e.g., Conway, 2005; Greenwald, 1980; Locke, 1694/1975) but in the emerging field of future thinking there has been less research in this area (but see Berntsen & Bohn, 2010; Libby & Eibach, 2008). The self-construct is widely regarded to be multidimensional (e.g., Gergen, 1968; Markus, 1977; Power, 2007), and autobiographical cognitions about one’s future are arguably a crucial element of the self-concept, aiding self-regulation (Hoyle & Sherrill, 2006), the formation of an adult identity during adolescence (Dunkel & Anthis, 2001), and motivating future behaviour (e.g., Fleury, Sedikides, & Donovan, 2002; Kerpelman & Lamke, 1997). Markus and Nurius (1986) defined ‘possible selves’ as individuals’ representations of what they ‘might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming’ (Markus & Nurius, 1986, p. 954). This self-knowledge about the future was envisaged as having a motivational function (helping hoped-for selves to be achieved and feared selves to be avoided), as well as providing a wider context through which to frame views of the current self. The present study draws on a recently developed paradigm used for studying the temporal relationships between selfimages and autobiographical memories: the IAM Task (Rathbone, Moulin, & Conway, 2009; Rathbone et al., 2008 developed from the Twenty-Statements Test, Kuhn & McPartland, 1954). In this task, participants generate self-images (e.g., I am a sister) and then these are used to cue autobiographical memories. Results consistently show that memories cluster temporally around periods of identity-formation. For example, if a person feels they first became ‘optimistic’ at age 15, this age is typically associated with a high frequency of memories of being an optimistic person. Data using the IAM Task with a middleaged adult sample (Mean age = 53.95; Rathbone et al., 2008) showed that identity formation (e.g., when new self-images were judged to emerge) was most prevalent in late adolescence and early adulthood, which is in keeping with theories of lifespan development (e.g., Erikson, 1950). Furthermore, results support the idea of a cultural life script (Berntsen & Rubin, 2004) that organises memories around normative life events such as marriage and career progression. The IAM Task bridges the gap between cognitive experimental and narrative approaches to studying memory and future event distributions, as it enables participants to choose freely their own personally significant self-images (e.g., ‘I am a sister’) as cues for memories, which are then dated and rated to allow quantitative examination. The present study is a development of the IAM Task, enabling investigation of distributions of self-relevant future events. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between self-image development and distributions of memories and future events. In light of research suggesting overlaps between past and future thinking (e.g., Addis et al., 2007; Klein et al., 2002), it was expected that future events would cluster around future self-images, as previously shown in distributions of memories (Rathbone et al., 2008). A secondary aim was to investigate the phenomenological ratings (e.g., field/observer perspective) associated with future events and memories cued by self-images. When remembering or imagining an event involving the self, the scene can be viewed from either the 1st person (field) perspective of looking through one’s own eyes, or through the 3rd person (observer) perspective of an onlooker (Freud, 1915/1957; Henri & Henri, 1897; Nigro & Neisser, 1983). Research has suggested that perspective relates to congruence between current selves and more temporally distant selves. Libby and Eibach (2002) found that remembered events conflicting with current perceptions of self tended to be viewed from an observer perspective, suggesting a psychological ‘distancing’ effect for memories that are not considered to reflect the current self. Furthermore, these authors also found that this effect held for perspective when imagining the future.
2. Material and methods 2.1. Participants Participants were 40 undergraduate students (37 female, three male; mean age 19.43, SD = 1.26, range 18–24), who took part for course credits. 2.2. Materials and procedure The tasks were administered in one questionnaire booklet, containing the IAM Task and the I Will Be Task. The order of tasks was counterbalanced. Both tasks required participants to generate three self-images (current or future, depending on the task), and to use each self-image to cue five memories/future events (e.g., each participant generated a total of 15 memories and 15 future events). Specific instructions for each task are detailed below. 2.2.1. IAM Task Participants generated three self-images that reflected enduring aspects of their sense of self (e.g., ‘I am a sister’, ‘I am cheerful’, ‘I am a student’). These self-images were then used to cue five memories of specific autobiographical events, for which a short description (one sentence of text) was provided by the participant. After all 15 memories were generated, the memories were dated as the age of the participant at the time of the recalled event, and finally the self-images were
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given a date of identity formation. The identity formation date was the age the participant felt that particular aspect of their identity ‘first became a part of their sense of self.’ 2.2.2. I Will Be Task The I Will Be Task was identical in design to the IAM Task, with the exception that participants were instructed to generate three ‘I will be’ statements which described ‘new selves that they might become in the future’ (participants were specifically instructed that these future self-images should not apply to themselves at present). For each future self-image, participants were asked to generate short descriptions of five ‘specific imagined events linked to this future self.’ Finally, participants dated all future events, and gave an age of future identity formation (when they thought each future self-image might become a stable part of their identity). 2.2.3. Ratings Memories and future events were rated for emotional intensity (regardless of valence) and frequency of rehearsal on a scale of 1–5 (1 min, 5 max). Participants also indicated whether they viewed the memories and future events from a field or observer perspective. 2.2.4. Reformulating analysis The data produced using the IAM Task enables examination of the distribution of memories around periods of identity formation. This analysis is based on reformulating the age of the memories (or future events) relative to the age of the identity that cued them. Thus all memories and future events were given either a positive score (occurring after the age of identity formation for the relevant self-image) or a negative score (occurring before identity formation), or 0 if they occurred in the same year that the self-image emerged. Thus, if a participant generated a self-image (e.g., ‘I am a friend’) that was formed at age 14, a memory of being a friend that was dated as age 17 would be reformulated as 3. 3. Results 3.1. IAM Task First we examined the distribution of memories around identity statements with the aim of replicating our previous finding (Rathbone et al., 2008), as this was the first time the task had been used in a younger adult sample. Participants produced a mean of 14.95 memories (SD = 0.22), since two participants failed to generate five memories for one of their IAM statements. To account for this the data were analysed proportionately. The reformulated distribution of participants’ memories around times of identity-formation is shown in Fig. 1. Results indicate that the self-centred memory effect is pronounced (18% of all memories produced were generated in year 0; compared to 10% in Study 1, Rathbone et al., 2008). A clustering pattern is shown, with memory numbers decreasing as years from identity formation increases. This is perhaps unsurprising, as participants in their late teens and early twenties have fewer years available to generate memories from (compared to the sample of adults with a mean age of 54.6, in Study 1, Rathbone et al., 2008), and thus a more peaked distribution of memories is expected. Excluding year zero, more memories
Fig. 1. Number of memories generated by age of self-image.
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are recalled from years after formation of self than before (407 versus 84). In order analyse these data formally, they were converted into proportional data over eight epochs ( 17 to 13; 12 to 8; 7 to 3; 2 to 2; 3 to 7; 8 to 12; 13 to 17; 18 to 22). Table 1 shows the mean proportion of memories within each epoch. Table 1 shows that the central epoch (between 2 years prior to age of self-image formation age and 2 years after) is the time from which most memories are recalled (47% of all memories). A repeated measures ANOVA was carried out on the eight epochs. There was a significant effect of epoch, F(7, 273) = 65.55, p < .0001; Partial g2 = .627. Pairwise comparisons were made comparing the eight epochs with each other using Bonferroni corrected t-tests. In the central epoch ( 2 to 2 years either side of self-image emergence), participants generated significantly more memories (mean number of memories recalled = 7, SD = 3.25) than for all of the other epochs (p < .0001, corrected) except epoch 3–7; immediately following the central epoch, (p = .22). The between-subjects factors revealed no significant main effects or interactions of age or gender (all F < 1). In summary, these results replicate the significant clustering effect of memories around self-image formation found using the IAM Task in older adults (Rathbone et al., 2008), but in a younger adult sample. 3.2. I Will Be Task In order to examine the distributions of imagined future events around future self-images, participants completed the I Will Be Task, generating up to five future events to each of three future self-images (producing a mean of 14.85 future events, SD = 0.81). Again, two participants failed to generate a complete set of five events for one of their I Will Be statements, and these data were converted to proportions. As before, the age participants generated for each future event was reformulated into distance from self-image formation. The distribution of these recoded data is shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 shows that well over twice as many future events are imagined as happening in year of self-image formation than any other year (27% of all future events generated dated to year zero). In this sample therefore, the self-centred clustering effect is even more pronounced for events in the future than memories of the past (18% of memories clustered on year zero), suggesting that a similar organisational process exists for thinking about the future as for recalling the past. A mean of 3.95 (SD = 2.62) future events were generated on year zero, compared to a mean of 2.68 (SD = 2.61) for memories. Comparison of these means in a paired sample t-test showed that a significantly higher number of future events than memories were generated in this year, t(39) = 2.31, p = .03. As with memories for the past, excluding year zero, there were more future events generated in years after self-image formation (252) than before (184).
Table 1 Mean (and standard deviation) proportion of memories in each epoch. Epoch (years) 17 to Proportion SD
0.01 0.02
13
12 to 0.02 0.04
8
7 to 0.04 0.08
3
2 to 2 0.47 0.22
3 to 7
8 to 12
13 to 17
18 to 22
0.31 0.19
0.10 0.15
0.05 0.10
0.01 0.03
Fig. 2. Number of future events generated by age of self-image.
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In line with the analysis of memories, future events were reformulated as proportional data within epochs. Because the distribution of future events was so wide, these data were divided into 13 epochs ( 64 to 55; 54 to 45; 44 to 35; 34 to 25; 24 to 15; 14 to 5; 4 to 5; 6 to 15; 16 to 25; 26 to 35; 36 to 45; 46 to 55; 56 to 65). The mean proportion of future events within each epoch is shown in Table 2. The 10 year epoch around zero (the period of 4 years before to 5 years after future self-image formation) was associated with 75% of all future events. These proportional data were analysed in a repeated measures ANOVA, revealing a highly reliable effect of epoch, F(12, 468) = 271.17, p < .000; Partial g2 = .874. Bonferroni-corrected pairwise comparisons indicated that the central epoch ( 5 to 4 years either side of self-image emergence), was associated with significantly more future events (mean number of future events generated = 11, SD = 2.96) than all other 12 epochs (p < .0001, corrected). Tests of betweensubjects factors revealed no significant main effects or interactions with age or gender (F < 1). 3.3. Patterns of self-image formation, raw ages of memories and future events Results from using the IAM Task with older adults (Rathbone et al., 2008) showed that self-images mostly emerge during the reminiscence bump period of late adolescence and early adulthood (Rubin, Wetzler, & Nebes, 1986). The data collected in the present study enabled a comparison of the dates of self-images formed in the past with those imagined in the future. As the sample in this study was relatively young, there was an upper limit to the dates of pre-existing self-image formation (the oldest participant was 24). However, future self-image dates reveal participants’ expectations regarding the times in their lives associated with personal change and the development of new self-images. Fig. 3 shows that pre-existing self-images are most frequently formed in participants’ teenage years, whilst future self-image formation is most prevalent in participants’ late twenties. Exploration of the types of future self-images generated shows that they most often related to becoming a parent (21% of all 120 future self-images), starting a new job (17%) and getting married (17%). These are events typically associated with identity-formation and the reminiscence bump effect (e.g., Conway & Holmes, 2004). The following event titles (ages shown in brackets) are an example of the imagined future events one participant associated with being a psychologist (aged 26): ‘getting the job I really want’ (26), ‘successful research’ (30), ‘first wage slip’ (22), ‘promotion’ (32), and ‘enjoying being a psychologist’ (26). The clustering effect, shown using the I Will Be Task above, would suggest that most future events would thus occur (in their raw form) in the participants’ twenties. The distribution of the raw dates of both memories and future events is shown in Fig. 4.
Table 2 Mean (and standard deviation) proportion of future events in each epoch. Epoch (years) 64 to 55 Proportion SD
0.00 0.01
54 to 45 0.00 0.00
44 to 35 0.01 0.03
34 to 25 0.00 0.01
24 to 15 0.01 0.03
14 to 5 0.10 0.13
5
4 to
6 to 15
16 to 25
26 to 35
36 to 45
46 to 55
56 to 65
0.75 0.19
0.10 0.12
0.01 0.03
0.02 0.04
0.01 0.02
0.00 0.01
0.00 0.01
Fig. 3. Distribution of pre-existing and future self-image formation across the lifespan.
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Fig. 4. Distribution of memories and future events across the lifespan.
Fig. 4 shows a rise in memories throughout participants’ teenage years (the low frequency of memories between ages 21 and 23 were generated by the small number of participants aged over 20). Distribution of future events centres on participants’ late twenties and drops off during participants’ thirties, with only a few future events generated during the fifties onwards. Fig. 4 bears a resemblance to the standard reminiscence bump graph, and results suggest that participants ‘complete’ their lifespan retrieval curve by generating imagined events in the reminiscence bump period where we might usually observe memories. 3.4. Phenomenological qualities of memories and future events Participants rated all memories and future events for regularity of rehearsal, emotional intensity (both rated on a 1–5 scale; 1 min, 5 max), and for perspective (observer versus field). There was no significant difference (p = .5) in mean rating of emotionality for future events (M = 3.55; SD = .79) or memories (M = 3.49; SD = .78). However, participants rehearsed future events significantly more frequently than memories, t(38) = 4.19, p < .0001 (future events, M = 2.70; SD = .92; memories, M = 2.05; SD = .99). Participants were also more likely to use a field perspective for memories than future events, t(38) = 2.90, p < .01 (Mean proportion of memories with field perspective = .87; SD = .20; Mean proportion of future events with field perspective = .73; SD = .28). The proportions show that both memories and future events were most frequently viewed with a field perspective. However, fewer future events were viewed with a field perspective than memories (meaning that more of them were seen from an observer perspective). 4. Discussion The present findings show that imagined future events clustered around future self-images in a way that was highly similar to the clusters of memories around past self-images. Previous research has suggested many overlaps between processes involved in remembering and imagining (e.g., Addis et al., 2007; Conway, 2009; Klein et al., 2002; Williams et al., 1996), and the results of the present study lend further support to the case for a shared underlying mechanism. The results also demonstrated that the clustering effect produced using the IAM Task applies to younger as well as older adults, thus extending the potential applicability of the IAM Task to a wider population. This symmetry between the organisation of past and future events around self-development may be the result of an organisational process that aids a sense of the temporal continuity of the self (Conway, 2009). With both imagined and remembered events constructed ‘online’, perhaps these events are temporally anchored to self-images (which are, in a sense, a more general level of semantic knowledge) in order to promote a more stable and coherent sense of the self in both the past and the future. Indeed, Berntsen and Jacobsen (2008) found that both remembered and imagined events overlapped equally with cultural life-scripts – sets of normative life events thought to organise memories (Berntsen & Rubin, 2004). It is assumed that maintaining a stable, coherent self, which is grounded in accurate knowledge, reflects a healthy state (Conway, 2005). Future work using the IAM and I Will Be Tasks could investigate patterns of memories and imagined events around self-image development in schizophrenics, as work by D’Argembeau, Raffard and Van der Linden (2008) found that this group has difficulty imagining specific past and future events, possibly, they suggest, as a result of disturbances in a sense of subjective time.
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The examination of phenomenological features of self-image cued memories and future events was a further aim of this study. Participants reported rehearsing their imagined future events more frequently than their memories. This suggests that the I Will Be Task may tap into goal-relevant future intentions (e.g., Markus & Nurius, 1986) that may well be rehearsed as an aid to guiding current behaviour. For example, a student may use rehearsal of imagined future events associated with the future self-image of being a clinical psychologist to help motivate them to work harder in the present. Vasquez and Buehler (2007) have shown that third-person imagery is related to motivation to succeed in a future academic task. There are thus potential applications of the I Will Be Task in educational settings. For example, studies could investigate whether factors such as procrastination, self-motivation, and academic attainment are related to features of future self-images (e.g., how vividly future self-images are visualised, when they are seen as emerging, and how positive/negative they are). In the present study, a higher proportion of future events were viewed as an observer, compared to the proportion of memories given an observer perspective. Previous research suggests that an observer perspective is more likely to be used when thinking about temporally distant events (D’Argembeau & van der Linden, 2004) and future/past selves that contradict with the self in the present (Libby & Eibach, 2002). Libby and Eibach (2008) suggest that viewing the self using an observer perspective aids self-continuity by connecting specific events with more abstract and overarching beliefs about the self. It is perhaps surprising then that this task, designed to explore the diachronic self, generated such a high number of field-perspective images (for both the past and the future). A possible explanation for this is the nature of the IAM Task, which asks participants to generate memories that are self-defining in nature. Self-defining memories (Singer & Blagov, 2004) tend to be more emotional and vivid, features that are typically related to field perspective (Nigro & Neisser, 1983). It is possible that the IAM/I Will Be Tasks taps into the same type of self-defining memories/future events that people use to construct a narrative life story, which includes their future self-images as well as those from the past. The design of the present study enabled the examination of reformulated data generated using the IAM/I Will Be Tasks. However, results were also examined as raw distributions of events across the lifespan, and as distributions of ages of identity-formation. The range of years over which participants generated future events and self-images was typically cut off at around age 40. This shows that the group did not sample evenly from across the lifespan, but typically only thought about the future in terms of the next 20 years. The pattern generated is similar in appearance to the standard lifespan retrieval curve, and it is possible that the focus on the late twenties regarding one’s future stems from the late identity-formations associated with social norms such as long-term relationships and career development (as suggested by the descriptive data; and in line with Conway & Holmes, 2004; Fitzgerald, 1988). However, an alternative explanation is that people at any age might focus their future thinking on the 20 years following the present. Spreng and Levine (2006) found that future events are most frequently sampled from the period closest to the present, in young, middle-aged and older adult groups. Thus, future studies could examine whether results from the I Will Be Task are also unaffected by aging. To summarise, this study showed that distributions of future events around future self-images demonstrate a similar clustering pattern to distributions of memories around current self-images. This suggests that events are used to support self-images, and that the temporal patterns of these events hold, regardless of whether one is imagining the future or remembering the past. The prevalence of future events and future self-images in the reminiscence bump period (focused on events such as parenthood and new careers) is further support for the prominence of cultural life-scripts (e.g., Berntsen & Rubin, 2004) in the ways people think about both their past and their future. Whilst the effects of novelty have generally been discounted as playing a role in the preferential retrieval of reminiscence bump memories (e.g., Fitzgerald, 1988; Janssen & Murre, 2008), it is possible that novelty has an important role in the construction of future events. As noted by Spreng and Levine (2006) there is still much research needed in the area of imagining the future. For example, there are likely to be differences between imagining extended repeated events and imagining specific events (as in memory, e.g., Conway, 1996), and novelty may also play a role in the types of future events people construct. Ongoing research will help to elucidate the role that the self plays when one imagines their future. It can be argued that the organisation of autobiographical memory emerges from the self trying to interpret and organise the record of human experience. These results suggest that the self plays a similar role when we imagine the future. 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In J. Perry (Ed.), Personal identity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(2), 63–78. Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41(9), 954–969. Nigro, G., & Neisser, U. (1983). Point of view in personal memories. Cognitive Psychology, 15(4), 467–482. Power, M. J. (2007). The multistory self: Why the self is more than the sum of its autoparts. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 63(2), 187–198. Rathbone, C. J., Moulin, C. J. A., & Conway, M. A. (2008). Self-centred memories: The reminiscence bump and the self. Memory & Cognition, 36(8), 1403–1414. Rathbone, C. J., Moulin, C. J. A., & Conway, M. A. (2009). Autobiographical memory and amnesia: Using conceptual knowledge to ground the self. Neurocase, 15(5), 405–418. Rubin, D. C., Wetzler, S. E., & Nebes, R. D. (1986). Autobiographical memory across the adult lifespan. In D. C. 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Consciousness and Cognition journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/concog
Remembering and imagining: The role of the self Clare J. Rathbone a,⇑, Martin A. Conway b, Chris J.A. Moulin b a b
Department of Psychology, University of Reading, England, UK Leeds Memory Group, Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, England, UK
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 11 October 2010 Available online 12 March 2011 Keywords: Autobiographical memory Imagining the future Self Identity
a b s t r a c t This study investigated whether temporal clustering of autobiographical memories (AMs) around periods of self-development (Rathbone, Moulin, & Conway, 2008, 2009) would also occur when imagining future events associated with the self. Participants completed an AM task and future thinking task. In both tasks, memories and future events were cued using participant-generated identity statements (e.g., I am a student; I will be a mother). Participants then dated their memories and future events, and finally gave an age at which each identity statement was judged to emerge. Dates of memories and future events were recoded as temporal distance from the identity statement used to cue them. AMs and future events both clustered robustly around periods of self-development, indicating the powerful organisational effect of the self. We suggest that life narrative structures are used to organise future events as well as memories. Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Our recollections of the past are not perfect records of experience. Rather, memory is a constructive process, prone to bias and errors. In light of this constructive nature, it is perhaps unsurprising that recent studies have revealed parallels between remembering the past and imagining the future. Neuroimaging research has shown overlaps in neural activity during remembering and imagining (e.g., Addis, Wong, & Schacter, 2007; Szpunar, Watson, & McDermott, 2007), indicating that these processes are based on a common constructive mechanism. Indeed, it has been suggested that the term ‘memory system’ be replaced with the term ‘remembering-imagining system’ in order to emphasise the constructive nature of remembering the past and imagining the future (Conway, 2009). Imagining the future (or ‘episodic future thought’, Atance & O’Neill, 2001) is a form of self-projection essential for human functioning. It is implicated in many every-day tasks, including planning, decision-making and navigation (Buckner & Carroll, 2007). Our ability to imagine the future enables us to construct an autobiographical life story that encompasses future goals and plans as well as memories, and in this way imagined future events can be highly autobiographical. Addis et al. (2007) found that both remembering and imagining engaged the autobiographical memory network, including left hippocampus and posterior visuospatial regions. The authors put forward a ‘constructive episodic simulation hypothesis’, which proposed that imagining future events requires that past events in memory are constructed into new scenarios. Similar overlaps have been found when people consider past and future selves. D’Argembeau et al. (2010) examined neural activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) when participants reflected on their current self, themselves in the past, and themselves in the future. Results indicated that thinking about the present self was associated with higher activity in the MPFC, compared to thinking about more temporally distant selves. Crucially, there was no significant difference in neural activity when ⇑ Corresponding author. Present address: Department of Psychology, School of Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Earley Gate, Reading RG6 6AL, UK. Fax: +44 (0)118 378 6715. E-mail address: [email protected] (C.J. Rathbone). 1053-8100/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2011.02.013
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thinking about past selves compared to future selves. Additional evidence for the close relationship between remembering and imagining comes from amnesic and depressed patients, whose difficulties in recalling specific details about the past are paralleled by impairments in imagining the future (e.g., Klein, Loftus, & Kihlstrom, 2002; Tulving, 1985; Williams et al., 1996). The relationship between the self and AM has long been a subject of study (e.g., Conway, 2005; Greenwald, 1980; Locke, 1694/1975) but in the emerging field of future thinking there has been less research in this area (but see Berntsen & Bohn, 2010; Libby & Eibach, 2008). The self-construct is widely regarded to be multidimensional (e.g., Gergen, 1968; Markus, 1977; Power, 2007), and autobiographical cognitions about one’s future are arguably a crucial element of the self-concept, aiding self-regulation (Hoyle & Sherrill, 2006), the formation of an adult identity during adolescence (Dunkel & Anthis, 2001), and motivating future behaviour (e.g., Fleury, Sedikides, & Donovan, 2002; Kerpelman & Lamke, 1997). Markus and Nurius (1986) defined ‘possible selves’ as individuals’ representations of what they ‘might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming’ (Markus & Nurius, 1986, p. 954). This self-knowledge about the future was envisaged as having a motivational function (helping hoped-for selves to be achieved and feared selves to be avoided), as well as providing a wider context through which to frame views of the current self. The present study draws on a recently developed paradigm used for studying the temporal relationships between selfimages and autobiographical memories: the IAM Task (Rathbone, Moulin, & Conway, 2009; Rathbone et al., 2008 developed from the Twenty-Statements Test, Kuhn & McPartland, 1954). In this task, participants generate self-images (e.g., I am a sister) and then these are used to cue autobiographical memories. Results consistently show that memories cluster temporally around periods of identity-formation. For example, if a person feels they first became ‘optimistic’ at age 15, this age is typically associated with a high frequency of memories of being an optimistic person. Data using the IAM Task with a middleaged adult sample (Mean age = 53.95; Rathbone et al., 2008) showed that identity formation (e.g., when new self-images were judged to emerge) was most prevalent in late adolescence and early adulthood, which is in keeping with theories of lifespan development (e.g., Erikson, 1950). Furthermore, results support the idea of a cultural life script (Berntsen & Rubin, 2004) that organises memories around normative life events such as marriage and career progression. The IAM Task bridges the gap between cognitive experimental and narrative approaches to studying memory and future event distributions, as it enables participants to choose freely their own personally significant self-images (e.g., ‘I am a sister’) as cues for memories, which are then dated and rated to allow quantitative examination. The present study is a development of the IAM Task, enabling investigation of distributions of self-relevant future events. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between self-image development and distributions of memories and future events. In light of research suggesting overlaps between past and future thinking (e.g., Addis et al., 2007; Klein et al., 2002), it was expected that future events would cluster around future self-images, as previously shown in distributions of memories (Rathbone et al., 2008). A secondary aim was to investigate the phenomenological ratings (e.g., field/observer perspective) associated with future events and memories cued by self-images. When remembering or imagining an event involving the self, the scene can be viewed from either the 1st person (field) perspective of looking through one’s own eyes, or through the 3rd person (observer) perspective of an onlooker (Freud, 1915/1957; Henri & Henri, 1897; Nigro & Neisser, 1983). Research has suggested that perspective relates to congruence between current selves and more temporally distant selves. Libby and Eibach (2002) found that remembered events conflicting with current perceptions of self tended to be viewed from an observer perspective, suggesting a psychological ‘distancing’ effect for memories that are not considered to reflect the current self. Furthermore, these authors also found that this effect held for perspective when imagining the future.
2. Material and methods 2.1. Participants Participants were 40 undergraduate students (37 female, three male; mean age 19.43, SD = 1.26, range 18–24), who took part for course credits. 2.2. Materials and procedure The tasks were administered in one questionnaire booklet, containing the IAM Task and the I Will Be Task. The order of tasks was counterbalanced. Both tasks required participants to generate three self-images (current or future, depending on the task), and to use each self-image to cue five memories/future events (e.g., each participant generated a total of 15 memories and 15 future events). Specific instructions for each task are detailed below. 2.2.1. IAM Task Participants generated three self-images that reflected enduring aspects of their sense of self (e.g., ‘I am a sister’, ‘I am cheerful’, ‘I am a student’). These self-images were then used to cue five memories of specific autobiographical events, for which a short description (one sentence of text) was provided by the participant. After all 15 memories were generated, the memories were dated as the age of the participant at the time of the recalled event, and finally the self-images were
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given a date of identity formation. The identity formation date was the age the participant felt that particular aspect of their identity ‘first became a part of their sense of self.’ 2.2.2. I Will Be Task The I Will Be Task was identical in design to the IAM Task, with the exception that participants were instructed to generate three ‘I will be’ statements which described ‘new selves that they might become in the future’ (participants were specifically instructed that these future self-images should not apply to themselves at present). For each future self-image, participants were asked to generate short descriptions of five ‘specific imagined events linked to this future self.’ Finally, participants dated all future events, and gave an age of future identity formation (when they thought each future self-image might become a stable part of their identity). 2.2.3. Ratings Memories and future events were rated for emotional intensity (regardless of valence) and frequency of rehearsal on a scale of 1–5 (1 min, 5 max). Participants also indicated whether they viewed the memories and future events from a field or observer perspective. 2.2.4. Reformulating analysis The data produced using the IAM Task enables examination of the distribution of memories around periods of identity formation. This analysis is based on reformulating the age of the memories (or future events) relative to the age of the identity that cued them. Thus all memories and future events were given either a positive score (occurring after the age of identity formation for the relevant self-image) or a negative score (occurring before identity formation), or 0 if they occurred in the same year that the self-image emerged. Thus, if a participant generated a self-image (e.g., ‘I am a friend’) that was formed at age 14, a memory of being a friend that was dated as age 17 would be reformulated as 3. 3. Results 3.1. IAM Task First we examined the distribution of memories around identity statements with the aim of replicating our previous finding (Rathbone et al., 2008), as this was the first time the task had been used in a younger adult sample. Participants produced a mean of 14.95 memories (SD = 0.22), since two participants failed to generate five memories for one of their IAM statements. To account for this the data were analysed proportionately. The reformulated distribution of participants’ memories around times of identity-formation is shown in Fig. 1. Results indicate that the self-centred memory effect is pronounced (18% of all memories produced were generated in year 0; compared to 10% in Study 1, Rathbone et al., 2008). A clustering pattern is shown, with memory numbers decreasing as years from identity formation increases. This is perhaps unsurprising, as participants in their late teens and early twenties have fewer years available to generate memories from (compared to the sample of adults with a mean age of 54.6, in Study 1, Rathbone et al., 2008), and thus a more peaked distribution of memories is expected. Excluding year zero, more memories
Fig. 1. Number of memories generated by age of self-image.
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are recalled from years after formation of self than before (407 versus 84). In order analyse these data formally, they were converted into proportional data over eight epochs ( 17 to 13; 12 to 8; 7 to 3; 2 to 2; 3 to 7; 8 to 12; 13 to 17; 18 to 22). Table 1 shows the mean proportion of memories within each epoch. Table 1 shows that the central epoch (between 2 years prior to age of self-image formation age and 2 years after) is the time from which most memories are recalled (47% of all memories). A repeated measures ANOVA was carried out on the eight epochs. There was a significant effect of epoch, F(7, 273) = 65.55, p < .0001; Partial g2 = .627. Pairwise comparisons were made comparing the eight epochs with each other using Bonferroni corrected t-tests. In the central epoch ( 2 to 2 years either side of self-image emergence), participants generated significantly more memories (mean number of memories recalled = 7, SD = 3.25) than for all of the other epochs (p < .0001, corrected) except epoch 3–7; immediately following the central epoch, (p = .22). The between-subjects factors revealed no significant main effects or interactions of age or gender (all F < 1). In summary, these results replicate the significant clustering effect of memories around self-image formation found using the IAM Task in older adults (Rathbone et al., 2008), but in a younger adult sample. 3.2. I Will Be Task In order to examine the distributions of imagined future events around future self-images, participants completed the I Will Be Task, generating up to five future events to each of three future self-images (producing a mean of 14.85 future events, SD = 0.81). Again, two participants failed to generate a complete set of five events for one of their I Will Be statements, and these data were converted to proportions. As before, the age participants generated for each future event was reformulated into distance from self-image formation. The distribution of these recoded data is shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 shows that well over twice as many future events are imagined as happening in year of self-image formation than any other year (27% of all future events generated dated to year zero). In this sample therefore, the self-centred clustering effect is even more pronounced for events in the future than memories of the past (18% of memories clustered on year zero), suggesting that a similar organisational process exists for thinking about the future as for recalling the past. A mean of 3.95 (SD = 2.62) future events were generated on year zero, compared to a mean of 2.68 (SD = 2.61) for memories. Comparison of these means in a paired sample t-test showed that a significantly higher number of future events than memories were generated in this year, t(39) = 2.31, p = .03. As with memories for the past, excluding year zero, there were more future events generated in years after self-image formation (252) than before (184).
Table 1 Mean (and standard deviation) proportion of memories in each epoch. Epoch (years) 17 to Proportion SD
0.01 0.02
13
12 to 0.02 0.04
8
7 to 0.04 0.08
3
2 to 2 0.47 0.22
3 to 7
8 to 12
13 to 17
18 to 22
0.31 0.19
0.10 0.15
0.05 0.10
0.01 0.03
Fig. 2. Number of future events generated by age of self-image.
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In line with the analysis of memories, future events were reformulated as proportional data within epochs. Because the distribution of future events was so wide, these data were divided into 13 epochs ( 64 to 55; 54 to 45; 44 to 35; 34 to 25; 24 to 15; 14 to 5; 4 to 5; 6 to 15; 16 to 25; 26 to 35; 36 to 45; 46 to 55; 56 to 65). The mean proportion of future events within each epoch is shown in Table 2. The 10 year epoch around zero (the period of 4 years before to 5 years after future self-image formation) was associated with 75% of all future events. These proportional data were analysed in a repeated measures ANOVA, revealing a highly reliable effect of epoch, F(12, 468) = 271.17, p < .000; Partial g2 = .874. Bonferroni-corrected pairwise comparisons indicated that the central epoch ( 5 to 4 years either side of self-image emergence), was associated with significantly more future events (mean number of future events generated = 11, SD = 2.96) than all other 12 epochs (p < .0001, corrected). Tests of betweensubjects factors revealed no significant main effects or interactions with age or gender (F < 1). 3.3. Patterns of self-image formation, raw ages of memories and future events Results from using the IAM Task with older adults (Rathbone et al., 2008) showed that self-images mostly emerge during the reminiscence bump period of late adolescence and early adulthood (Rubin, Wetzler, & Nebes, 1986). The data collected in the present study enabled a comparison of the dates of self-images formed in the past with those imagined in the future. As the sample in this study was relatively young, there was an upper limit to the dates of pre-existing self-image formation (the oldest participant was 24). However, future self-image dates reveal participants’ expectations regarding the times in their lives associated with personal change and the development of new self-images. Fig. 3 shows that pre-existing self-images are most frequently formed in participants’ teenage years, whilst future self-image formation is most prevalent in participants’ late twenties. Exploration of the types of future self-images generated shows that they most often related to becoming a parent (21% of all 120 future self-images), starting a new job (17%) and getting married (17%). These are events typically associated with identity-formation and the reminiscence bump effect (e.g., Conway & Holmes, 2004). The following event titles (ages shown in brackets) are an example of the imagined future events one participant associated with being a psychologist (aged 26): ‘getting the job I really want’ (26), ‘successful research’ (30), ‘first wage slip’ (22), ‘promotion’ (32), and ‘enjoying being a psychologist’ (26). The clustering effect, shown using the I Will Be Task above, would suggest that most future events would thus occur (in their raw form) in the participants’ twenties. The distribution of the raw dates of both memories and future events is shown in Fig. 4.
Table 2 Mean (and standard deviation) proportion of future events in each epoch. Epoch (years) 64 to 55 Proportion SD
0.00 0.01
54 to 45 0.00 0.00
44 to 35 0.01 0.03
34 to 25 0.00 0.01
24 to 15 0.01 0.03
14 to 5 0.10 0.13
5
4 to
6 to 15
16 to 25
26 to 35
36 to 45
46 to 55
56 to 65
0.75 0.19
0.10 0.12
0.01 0.03
0.02 0.04
0.01 0.02
0.00 0.01
0.00 0.01
Fig. 3. Distribution of pre-existing and future self-image formation across the lifespan.
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Fig. 4. Distribution of memories and future events across the lifespan.
Fig. 4 shows a rise in memories throughout participants’ teenage years (the low frequency of memories between ages 21 and 23 were generated by the small number of participants aged over 20). Distribution of future events centres on participants’ late twenties and drops off during participants’ thirties, with only a few future events generated during the fifties onwards. Fig. 4 bears a resemblance to the standard reminiscence bump graph, and results suggest that participants ‘complete’ their lifespan retrieval curve by generating imagined events in the reminiscence bump period where we might usually observe memories. 3.4. Phenomenological qualities of memories and future events Participants rated all memories and future events for regularity of rehearsal, emotional intensity (both rated on a 1–5 scale; 1 min, 5 max), and for perspective (observer versus field). There was no significant difference (p = .5) in mean rating of emotionality for future events (M = 3.55; SD = .79) or memories (M = 3.49; SD = .78). However, participants rehearsed future events significantly more frequently than memories, t(38) = 4.19, p < .0001 (future events, M = 2.70; SD = .92; memories, M = 2.05; SD = .99). Participants were also more likely to use a field perspective for memories than future events, t(38) = 2.90, p < .01 (Mean proportion of memories with field perspective = .87; SD = .20; Mean proportion of future events with field perspective = .73; SD = .28). The proportions show that both memories and future events were most frequently viewed with a field perspective. However, fewer future events were viewed with a field perspective than memories (meaning that more of them were seen from an observer perspective). 4. Discussion The present findings show that imagined future events clustered around future self-images in a way that was highly similar to the clusters of memories around past self-images. Previous research has suggested many overlaps between processes involved in remembering and imagining (e.g., Addis et al., 2007; Conway, 2009; Klein et al., 2002; Williams et al., 1996), and the results of the present study lend further support to the case for a shared underlying mechanism. The results also demonstrated that the clustering effect produced using the IAM Task applies to younger as well as older adults, thus extending the potential applicability of the IAM Task to a wider population. This symmetry between the organisation of past and future events around self-development may be the result of an organisational process that aids a sense of the temporal continuity of the self (Conway, 2009). With both imagined and remembered events constructed ‘online’, perhaps these events are temporally anchored to self-images (which are, in a sense, a more general level of semantic knowledge) in order to promote a more stable and coherent sense of the self in both the past and the future. Indeed, Berntsen and Jacobsen (2008) found that both remembered and imagined events overlapped equally with cultural life-scripts – sets of normative life events thought to organise memories (Berntsen & Rubin, 2004). It is assumed that maintaining a stable, coherent self, which is grounded in accurate knowledge, reflects a healthy state (Conway, 2005). Future work using the IAM and I Will Be Tasks could investigate patterns of memories and imagined events around self-image development in schizophrenics, as work by D’Argembeau, Raffard and Van der Linden (2008) found that this group has difficulty imagining specific past and future events, possibly, they suggest, as a result of disturbances in a sense of subjective time.
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The examination of phenomenological features of self-image cued memories and future events was a further aim of this study. Participants reported rehearsing their imagined future events more frequently than their memories. This suggests that the I Will Be Task may tap into goal-relevant future intentions (e.g., Markus & Nurius, 1986) that may well be rehearsed as an aid to guiding current behaviour. For example, a student may use rehearsal of imagined future events associated with the future self-image of being a clinical psychologist to help motivate them to work harder in the present. Vasquez and Buehler (2007) have shown that third-person imagery is related to motivation to succeed in a future academic task. There are thus potential applications of the I Will Be Task in educational settings. For example, studies could investigate whether factors such as procrastination, self-motivation, and academic attainment are related to features of future self-images (e.g., how vividly future self-images are visualised, when they are seen as emerging, and how positive/negative they are). In the present study, a higher proportion of future events were viewed as an observer, compared to the proportion of memories given an observer perspective. Previous research suggests that an observer perspective is more likely to be used when thinking about temporally distant events (D’Argembeau & van der Linden, 2004) and future/past selves that contradict with the self in the present (Libby & Eibach, 2002). Libby and Eibach (2008) suggest that viewing the self using an observer perspective aids self-continuity by connecting specific events with more abstract and overarching beliefs about the self. It is perhaps surprising then that this task, designed to explore the diachronic self, generated such a high number of field-perspective images (for both the past and the future). A possible explanation for this is the nature of the IAM Task, which asks participants to generate memories that are self-defining in nature. Self-defining memories (Singer & Blagov, 2004) tend to be more emotional and vivid, features that are typically related to field perspective (Nigro & Neisser, 1983). It is possible that the IAM/I Will Be Tasks taps into the same type of self-defining memories/future events that people use to construct a narrative life story, which includes their future self-images as well as those from the past. The design of the present study enabled the examination of reformulated data generated using the IAM/I Will Be Tasks. However, results were also examined as raw distributions of events across the lifespan, and as distributions of ages of identity-formation. The range of years over which participants generated future events and self-images was typically cut off at around age 40. This shows that the group did not sample evenly from across the lifespan, but typically only thought about the future in terms of the next 20 years. The pattern generated is similar in appearance to the standard lifespan retrieval curve, and it is possible that the focus on the late twenties regarding one’s future stems from the late identity-formations associated with social norms such as long-term relationships and career development (as suggested by the descriptive data; and in line with Conway & Holmes, 2004; Fitzgerald, 1988). However, an alternative explanation is that people at any age might focus their future thinking on the 20 years following the present. Spreng and Levine (2006) found that future events are most frequently sampled from the period closest to the present, in young, middle-aged and older adult groups. Thus, future studies could examine whether results from the I Will Be Task are also unaffected by aging. To summarise, this study showed that distributions of future events around future self-images demonstrate a similar clustering pattern to distributions of memories around current self-images. This suggests that events are used to support self-images, and that the temporal patterns of these events hold, regardless of whether one is imagining the future or remembering the past. The prevalence of future events and future self-images in the reminiscence bump period (focused on events such as parenthood and new careers) is further support for the prominence of cultural life-scripts (e.g., Berntsen & Rubin, 2004) in the ways people think about both their past and their future. Whilst the effects of novelty have generally been discounted as playing a role in the preferential retrieval of reminiscence bump memories (e.g., Fitzgerald, 1988; Janssen & Murre, 2008), it is possible that novelty has an important role in the construction of future events. As noted by Spreng and Levine (2006) there is still much research needed in the area of imagining the future. For example, there are likely to be differences between imagining extended repeated events and imagining specific events (as in memory, e.g., Conway, 1996), and novelty may also play a role in the types of future events people construct. Ongoing research will help to elucidate the role that the self plays when one imagines their future. It can be argued that the organisation of autobiographical memory emerges from the self trying to interpret and organise the record of human experience. These results suggest that the self plays a similar role when we imagine the future. Acknowledgment This work was supported by an ESRC 1 + 3 PhD studentship (PTA-031-2005-00309) and an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (PTA-026-27-2592) held by the first author. References Addis, D. R., Wong, A. T., & Schacter, D. L. (2007). Remembering the past and imagining the future: Common and distinct neural substrates during event construction and elaboration. Neuropsychologia, 45(7), 1363–1377. Atance, C. M., & O’Neill, D. K. (2001). Episodic future thinking. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(12), 533–539. Berntsen, D., & Bohn, A. (2010). Remembering and forecasting: The relation between autobiographical memory and episodic future thinking. Memory & Cognition, 38(3), 265–278. Berntsen, D., & Jacobsen, A. S. (2008). Involuntary (spontaneous) mental time travel into the past and future. Consciousness & Cognition, 17(4), 1093–1104. Berntsen, D., & Rubin, D. C. (2004). Cultural life scripts structure recall from autobiographical memory. Memory & Cognition, 32(3), 427–442. Buckner, R. 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