Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-8p85h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-19T07:42:00.735Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prospection and the brain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2007

Randy L. Buckner
Randy L. Buckner
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, Athinoula A Martinos Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Cambridge, MA 02138. rbuckner@wjh.harvard.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Suddendorf & Corballis (S&C) propose that the capacity to flexibly forsee the future was a critical step in human evolution and is accomplished by a set of component processes that can be likened to a theater production. Understanding the brain-bases of these functions may help to clarify the hypothesized component processes, inform us of how and when they are used adaptively, and also provide empirical ways of exploring to what degree these abilities exist and are implemented similarly (or differently) across species.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , June 2007 , pp. 318 - 319
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Addis, D. R., Wong, A. T. & Schacter, D. L. (2007) Remembering the past and imagining the future: Common and distinct neural substrates during event construction and elaboration. Neuropsychologia 45(7):1363–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buckner, R. L. & Carroll, D. C. (2007) Self-projection and the brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11(2):49–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferbinteanu, J. & Shapiro, M. L. (2003) Prospective and retrospective memory coding in the hippocampus. Neuron 40:1227–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foster, D. J. & Wilson, M. A. (2006) Reverse replay of behavioural sequences in hippocampal place cells during the awake state. Nature 440:680–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, D. T. (2006) Stumbling on happiness. Knopf.Google Scholar
Hassabis, D., Kumaran, D., Vann, S. D. & Maguire, E. A. (2007) Patients with hippocampal amnesia cannot imagine new experiences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104(5):1726–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ingvar, D. H. (1979) “Hyperfrontal” distribution of the cerebral grey matter flow in resting wakefulness: On the functional anatomy of the conscious state. Acta Neurologica Scandanavica 60:12–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ingvar, D. H. (1985) Memory of the future: An essay on the temporal organization of conscious awareness. Human Neurobiology 4:127–36.Google ScholarPubMed
Klein, S. B., Cosmides, L., Tooby, J. & Chance, S. (2002a) Decisions and the evolution of memory: Multiple systems, multiple functions. Psychological Review 109:306–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Okuda, J., Fujii, T., Ohtake, H., Tsukiura, T., Tanji, K., Suzuki, K., Kawashima, R., Fukuda, H., Itoh, M. & Yamadori, A. (2003) Thinking of the future and past: The roles of the frontal pole and the medial temporal lobes. Neuroimage 19:1369–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schacter, D. L. & Addis, D. R. (2007a) The cognitive neuroscience of constructive memory: Remembering the past and imagining the future. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (B) Biological Sciences. 362(1481):773–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Suddendorf, T. & Corballis, M. C. (1997) Mental time travel and the evolution of the human mind. Genetic Social and General Psychology Monographs 123(2):133–67. Available at: http://cogprints.org/725/Google ScholarPubMed
Szpunar, K. K., Watson, J. M. & McDermott, K. B. (2007) Neural substrates of envisioning the future. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104(2):642–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tulving, E. (1985) Memory and consciousness. Canadian Journal of Psychology 26:1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar