TY - JOUR
T1 - Evolutionary economics of mental time travel?
AU - Boyer, Pascal
PY - 2008/6
Y1 - 2008/6
N2 - What is the function of our capacity for 'mental time travel'? Evolutionary considerations suggest that vivid memory and imaginative foresight may be crucial cognitive devices for human decision making. Our emotional engagement with past or future events gives them great motivational force, which may counter a natural tendency towards time discounting and impulsive, opportunistic behavior. In this view, whereas simple episodic memory provides us with a store of relevant, case-based information to guide decisions, mental time travel nudges us towards more restrained choices, which in the long term are advantageous, especially so given human dependence on cooperation and coordination.
AB - What is the function of our capacity for 'mental time travel'? Evolutionary considerations suggest that vivid memory and imaginative foresight may be crucial cognitive devices for human decision making. Our emotional engagement with past or future events gives them great motivational force, which may counter a natural tendency towards time discounting and impulsive, opportunistic behavior. In this view, whereas simple episodic memory provides us with a store of relevant, case-based information to guide decisions, mental time travel nudges us towards more restrained choices, which in the long term are advantageous, especially so given human dependence on cooperation and coordination.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/44549086412
U2 - 10.1016/j.tics.2008.03.003
DO - 10.1016/j.tics.2008.03.003
M3 - Article
C2 - 18468941
AN - SCOPUS:44549086412
SN - 1364-6613
VL - 12
SP - 219
EP - 224
JO - Trends in Cognitive Sciences
JF - Trends in Cognitive Sciences
IS - 6
ER -