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The Impact of Self-processing on Mental Time Travel
Sponsor: Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri SpA
Summary
Mental time travel (MTT) refers to the ability to project oneself backward into the past or forward into the future to envision past and future events. This study examines the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in orienting toward past and future events during MTT.
Official title: How Self-processing Affects Mental Time Travel: a Neuropsychological Study
Key Details
Gender
All
Age Range
40 Years - 80 Years
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Enrollment
66
Start Date
2024-12-01
Completion Date
2026-09-30
Last Updated
2026-02-23
Healthy Volunteers
Yes
Conditions
Interventions
Mental Time Travel task
A psychophysical task (D'Angelo et al., 2023) will be adopted. In this task, a projection in time will be "induced" by faces of different ages. Face stimuli will be presented with a short sentence describing a particular life event, commonly occurring around 60. Participants will perform a two-alternative forced-choice task under two experimental conditions. In the "past projection" condition, they will indicate whether it is "likely" or "unlikely" that the person of the face shown could have experienced the indicated event 10 years earlier. In the "future projection," they will indicate whether it is "likely" or "unlikely" that the person depicted will experience the indicated event in 10 years.
Age Estimation control task
In this task participants will estimate the age of the faces adopted as stimuli.
Lifeline task
In this task participants will be instructed to associated each event with the age at which they believe it typically occurred.
Locations (1)
Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri
Castel Goffredo, Mantova, Italy