Introduction: Mental Time Travel (MTT) is the use of one’s mind to travel backwards and forwards in time to re-experience past events and pre-experience future ones. MTT is crucial for episodic memory and for adaptive functions such as planning. MTT can be impaired by neurological diseases or psychological problems such as rumination, a cognitive style typical of individuals who suffer from depressive symptoms that involves focusing attention on negative past events. Thus, one hypothesis is that individuals with such symptoms focus more on the past than on the future. According to this hypothesis, these individuals seem to experience future events as less vivid than healthy individuals do. However, further research is still needed to clarify whether individuals with depressive symptoms focus more on the past than on the future. This contribution aims to present and discuss the first results of a PRIN 2022 project on the impact of depressive symptoms on MTT in a community sample. Methods: Thirty-four young adults (19 females; age M = 23.12 years, age SD = 2.65 years; no psychiatric or neurological diagnosis) were grouped according to the score of the DSM‐5 Level 2 Depression – Adults: the experimental group included 15 participants with mild-to-severe depressive symptoms; the control group included 19 participants without depressive symptoms. All participants underwent a selfreference MTT task. After hearing an event, they had to classify it as “past” if already occurred or “future” if not occurred yet. We conducted an ANOVA to compare the two groups in the accuracy in classifying past and future events. Results: All participants were more accurate at classifying past events than future events. Most interestingly, individuals with depressive symptoms were more accurate than controls at classifying past events, but less accurate than controls at classifying future events.
Effects of Depressive Symptoms on Mental Time Travel
Vittorio Lenzo;
2024-01-01
Abstract
Introduction: Mental Time Travel (MTT) is the use of one’s mind to travel backwards and forwards in time to re-experience past events and pre-experience future ones. MTT is crucial for episodic memory and for adaptive functions such as planning. MTT can be impaired by neurological diseases or psychological problems such as rumination, a cognitive style typical of individuals who suffer from depressive symptoms that involves focusing attention on negative past events. Thus, one hypothesis is that individuals with such symptoms focus more on the past than on the future. According to this hypothesis, these individuals seem to experience future events as less vivid than healthy individuals do. However, further research is still needed to clarify whether individuals with depressive symptoms focus more on the past than on the future. This contribution aims to present and discuss the first results of a PRIN 2022 project on the impact of depressive symptoms on MTT in a community sample. Methods: Thirty-four young adults (19 females; age M = 23.12 years, age SD = 2.65 years; no psychiatric or neurological diagnosis) were grouped according to the score of the DSM‐5 Level 2 Depression – Adults: the experimental group included 15 participants with mild-to-severe depressive symptoms; the control group included 19 participants without depressive symptoms. All participants underwent a selfreference MTT task. After hearing an event, they had to classify it as “past” if already occurred or “future” if not occurred yet. We conducted an ANOVA to compare the two groups in the accuracy in classifying past and future events. Results: All participants were more accurate at classifying past events than future events. Most interestingly, individuals with depressive symptoms were more accurate than controls at classifying past events, but less accurate than controls at classifying future events.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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