Harvard psychologists Donna Rose Addis, Alana Wong and Daniel Schacter, recently carried out a study which revealed that the ability of older people to construct imaginary scenarios is linked to their ability to recall detailed memories.

According to the study, episodic memory, which represents our personal memories of past experiences, “allows individuals to project themselves both backward and forward in subjective time.”

Therefore, in order to create imagined future events, the individual must be able to remember the details of previously experienced ones extract various details and put them together to create an imaginary event, a process known as the constructive-episodic-simulation.

When compared with young adults, the researchers found that the older adults displayed a significant reduction in the use of internal episodic details to describe both past memories and imagined future events. 

Yet another reason to involve children and youngsters in participatory foresight exercises more often one could say. At the same time, elderly often bring in a level of wisdom, knowledge of and experience with dynamics of the past, mental frameworks which help them to assess new situations. A good mix still remains … a good mix.

Via Eurekalert

This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 16:08 and is filed under foresight, future, science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.