TY - JOUR
T1 - A novel scoring protocol reveals age-related differences in abstract compared to concrete thinking in cued autobiographical remembering
AU - Hovhannisyan, Mariam
AU - Raffaelli, Quentin
AU - Chau, Nadine
AU - Andrews-Hanna, Jessica R.
AU - Grilli, Matthew D.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024/12
Y1 - 2024/12
N2 - Human imagination has garnered growing interest in many fields. However, it remains unclear how to characterize different forms of imaginative thinking and how imagination differs between young and older adults. Here, we introduce a novel scoring protocol based on recent theoretical developments in the cognitive neuroscience of imagination to provide a broad tool with which to characterize imaginative thinking. The scoring protocol distinguishes between concrete/perceptual forms of imagination termed the “mind’s eye” and abstract/reflective forms of imagination termed the “mind’s mind.” The protocol also captures whether thoughts pertain to the self, others, or both. We applied this scoring protocol with high inter-rater reliability across two studies involving distinct participants and narrative-based imagination tasks. When compared to young adults, older adults showed a bias toward general content, which is a feature of the mind’s mind form of thinking while describing aloud their memories of specific, past events (Study 1). Further, older adults made fewer references to the self. In a separate study of only older adults (Study 2), increasing age was not associated with a bias toward the mind’s mind while describing specific past or future events. These results reveal that imaginative thinking can be characterized within the Mind’s Eye Mind’s Mind framework, with implications for understanding cognitively normal older age.
AB - Human imagination has garnered growing interest in many fields. However, it remains unclear how to characterize different forms of imaginative thinking and how imagination differs between young and older adults. Here, we introduce a novel scoring protocol based on recent theoretical developments in the cognitive neuroscience of imagination to provide a broad tool with which to characterize imaginative thinking. The scoring protocol distinguishes between concrete/perceptual forms of imagination termed the “mind’s eye” and abstract/reflective forms of imagination termed the “mind’s mind.” The protocol also captures whether thoughts pertain to the self, others, or both. We applied this scoring protocol with high inter-rater reliability across two studies involving distinct participants and narrative-based imagination tasks. When compared to young adults, older adults showed a bias toward general content, which is a feature of the mind’s mind form of thinking while describing aloud their memories of specific, past events (Study 1). Further, older adults made fewer references to the self. In a separate study of only older adults (Study 2), increasing age was not associated with a bias toward the mind’s mind while describing specific past or future events. These results reveal that imaginative thinking can be characterized within the Mind’s Eye Mind’s Mind framework, with implications for understanding cognitively normal older age.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85213505303&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85213505303&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41598-024-82493-6
DO - 10.1038/s41598-024-82493-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 39730904
AN - SCOPUS:85213505303
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 14
JO - Scientific reports
JF - Scientific reports
IS - 1
M1 - 30642
ER -