Vividness of imagery and affective response to episodic memories and episodic future thoughts: a systematic review and meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

Recalling personal past events and imagining personal future events are closely linked, yet also show differences. It has been claimed that episodic future thinking produces stronger intensity of in-the-moment affect than does recalling episodic memories [Schubert, T., Eloo, R., Scharfen, J., & Morina, N. (2020). How imagining personal future scenarios influences affect: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 75, 101811. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2019.101811]. In contrast, the literature indicates that memories are experienced more vividly than are episodic future thoughts, a quality that would be expected to produce a stronger rather than a weaker affective response. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we examined (a) the intensity of affect, (b) the vividness and (c) the valence of emotion experienced in response to remembering personal past events compared to imagining personal future events. Sixteen studies with a combined sample of 1735 met criteria for inclusion. Remembered past events were experienced more vividly than imagined future events but there was no difference between the two types of representations on emotional intensity. Imagined future events were associated with more positive emotion than memories. Future research could examine factors responsible for the equivalent strength of emotional response in memories and future-thinking despite their differences in vividness.

KEYWORDS:

• Vividness
• anticipatory affect
• episodic memory
• episodic future-thinking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

*References marked with an asterisk are included in the meta-analysis.

Notes

1 For the purpose of this review, vividness is defined as “the quality of producing very clear pictures in the mind” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, 2021). Therefore, to be included in the review, studies needed to either include the word “vivid(ness)” in the item descriptor or clearly assess the quality of producing pictures in the mind.

2 Emotional intensity is defined as intensity of emotion experienced clearly in the act of recalling or imagining the event.

3 Emotional valence is defined as the judged valence (i.e., positive vs. negative) of emotion experienced in the act of recalling or imagining the event.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.