In the course of daily life, various events-such as driving in suboptimal weather conditions, going on a first date, or walking home alone at night-evoke cognitions about what might happen next in the context of ongoing experience. Nonetheless, little is currently known about the phenomenological experience of anticipating events that might occur next-or what we refer to as simulation of the approximal future. We present novel evidence from a retrospective survey, a diary study, and an experimental laboratory study indicating that people commonly experience simulations of the approximal future, and that simulations of the approximal future can be reliably distinguished, in terms of their valence and function, from simulations of future events that are expected to occur in spatiotemporal contexts that are distinct from ongoing experience. Simulation of the approximal future represents an understudied mental experience that carries important implications for understanding the nature of constructive perceptual and memory-based processes as they pertain to event cognition, threat detection, individual differences, and psychopathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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近似未来的心理模拟：想象接下来会发生什么。


在日常生活过程中，各种事件——例如在次优天气条件下驾驶、第一次约会或晚上独自步行回家——都会唤起对在持续体验的背景下接下来可能发生的事情的认知。尽管如此，目前人们对预测接下来可能发生的事件的现象学经验知之甚少，或者我们所说的近似未来的模拟。我们提出了来自回顾性调查、日记研究和实验实验室研究的新证据，表明人们通常会体验到对近似未来的模拟，并且对近似未来的模拟在它们的效价和功能方面可以可靠地区分对未来事件的模拟，这些模拟预期会发生在与正在进行的经验不同的时空背景下。近似未来的模拟代表了一种研究不足的心理体验，对于理解建设性知觉和基于记忆的过程的性质具有重要意义，因为它们与事件认知、威胁检测、个体差异和精神病理学有关。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 （c） 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。