Episodic imagining, temporal experience, and beliefs about time

Anthony Bigg; Andrew James Latham; Kristie Miller; Shira Yechimovitz

doi:10.1111/phpr.13054

Episodic imagining, temporal experience, and beliefs about time

Anthony Bigg, Andrew James Latham, Kristie Miller, Shira Yechimovitz

Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

We explore the role of episodic imagining in explaining why people both differentially report that it seems to them in experience as though time robustly passes, and why they differentially report that they believe that time does in fact robustly pass. We empirically investigate two hypotheses, the differential vividness hypothesis, and the mental time travel hypothesis. According to each of these, the degree to which people vividly episodically imagine past/future states of affairs influences their tendency to report that it seems to them as though time robustly passes and to judge that time does robustly pass. According to the former, a greater degree of vividness will tend to increase the extent to which people make such reports, while according to the latter, it will tend to decrease the extent to which people make such reports. We found weak evidence in favour of the former hypothesis. We reflect on the implications of this finding for theorising about such reports.

Original language	English
Journal	Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Volume	109
Issue	2
Pages (from-to)	528-547
Number of pages	20
ISSN	0031-8205
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.13054
Publication status	Published - Sept 2024

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title = "Episodic imagining, temporal experience, and beliefs about time",

abstract = "We explore the role of episodic imagining in explaining why people both differentially report that it seems to them in experience as though time robustly passes, and why they differentially report that they believe that time does in fact robustly pass. We empirically investigate two hypotheses, the differential vividness hypothesis, and the mental time travel hypothesis. According to each of these, the degree to which people vividly episodically imagine past/future states of affairs influences their tendency to report that it seems to them as though time robustly passes and to judge that time does robustly pass. According to the former, a greater degree of vividness will tend to increase the extent to which people make such reports, while according to the latter, it will tend to decrease the extent to which people make such reports. We found weak evidence in favour of the former hypothesis. We reflect on the implications of this finding for theorising about such reports.",

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Episodic imagining, temporal experience, and beliefs about time

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