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Characteristics of personally important episodic memories, counterfactual thoughts, and future projections across age and culture
Author(s) -
Özbek Müge,
Bohn Annette,
Berntsen Dorthe
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.3681
Subject(s) - psychology , counterfactual thinking , perception , counterfactual conditional , episodic memory , turkish , developmental psychology , replicate , cognition , cognitive psychology , social psychology , linguistics , philosophy , statistics , mathematics , neuroscience
Summary We have limited knowledge as to whether the phenomenological differences between episodic memories, counterfactuals, and future projections show the same pattern across age groups and diverse samples. Here we compared the characteristics of these mental events, reported by younger and older participants in a Turkish (Study 1) and in an American sample (Study 2). In both studies, memories contained more sensory‐perceptual‐spatial details, were easier to bring to mind, and more specific. Future projections were the most positive, whereas counterfactuals were the least emotionally intense. In Study 1, older participants rated the events more positively and experienced them with more perceptual detail, whereas younger participants reported the future to be more voluntarily rehearsed, important, and central. These age differences did not replicate in Study 2. Overall, phenomenological differences between the events are robust and replicate across diverse samples. However, age differences are more sensitive to cultural or individual differences.