Looking forward: the effects of photographs on the qualities of future thinking
Future episodic thinking relies on the reconstruction of remembered experiences. Photographs provide one means of remembering, acting as a "cognitive springboard" for generating related memory qualities. We wondered whether photographs would also invite embellishment of future thought qual...
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| Published in: | Memory (Hove) Vol. 26; no. 4; pp. 493 - 502 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
England
Routledge
21-04-2018
Taylor & Francis Ltd |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Future episodic thinking relies on the reconstruction of remembered experiences. Photographs provide one means of remembering, acting as a "cognitive springboard" for generating related memory qualities. We wondered whether photographs would also invite embellishment of future thought qualities, particularly in the presence (or absence) of associated memories. In two studies participants generated future events in familiar (associated memories) and novel (no associated memories) locations. Half of the participants viewed scene location photographs during event generation. All participants then imagined the events for one minute and completed a self-report measure of content qualities. Results of the current set of studies suggested that for novel locations, no differences in qualities emerged; however, for familiar locations, photographs did not enhance qualities and, in some cases, actually constrained perceptual (Experiments 1 and 2) and sensory (Experiment 1) detail ratings of future thoughts. Thus, photographs did not invite embellishment of future thought details. |
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| Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
| ISSN: | 0965-8211 1464-0686 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/09658211.2017.1375529 |