Approximal simulations of the future: Evaluating the role of self-relevance

Extant research on mental simulations of the future has focused predominantly on events that might occur in spatiotemporal contexts that are distinct from ongoing experience-the distal future. In the present study, we extend recent work showing that people also often experience mental simulations of what might happen next in the context of ongoing experience-the approximal future. Whereas distal simulations tend to focus on positive outcomes related to goal states, approximal simulations tend to focus on negative outcomes related to threat detection. Using a novel experimental paradigm, we demonstrate that the distinction between distal and approximal simulations emerges whether one simulates events related to themselves, a close other, or a distant other, suggesting that general expectation can play a role in anticipating the very near and more distant future. Moreover, our findings provide novel insights into the role of spontaneous cognitive processes and visual perspective in simulations of the approximal and distal future. Implications for the study of approximal simulations in contexts that involve threat detection on behalf of others are discussed.