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Episodic future thinking and future-based decision-making in a case of retrograde amnesia
Flavia De Luca1, Francesca Benuzzi2, Elena Bertossi1
1Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Bologna, Italy; Centro studi e ricerche in Neuroscienze Cognitive, Cesena, Italy.
Neuropsychologia
|August 13, 2017
Summary
Patient SG, with severe retrograde amnesia, cannot imagine personal future events but can create fictitious ones. This suggests autobiographical memory is crucial for future thinking, but not for future-oriented decisions.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
Background:
- Investigating episodic future thinking (EFT) and decision-making in amnesia.
- Understanding the role of autobiographical memory in future cognition.
Observation:
- Patient SG with dense retrograde amnesia after hypoxia.
- Intact general cognition and executive functions, but inability to recall lifetime events.
- Impaired ability to imagine personal future events, but preserved ability for fictitious events.
Findings:
- Retrieval of autobiographical memory is necessary for EFT.
- Spared anterograde memory and semantic knowledge enable fictitious experience construction.
- EFT is not essential for future-oriented cognition and choice.
Implications:
- Highlights the link between autobiographical memory and EFT.
- Demonstrates the fractionation of human temporal consciousness.
- Contributes to understanding retrograde amnesia as an impairment of memory and future thinking.
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