Affiliations: [a]
School of Social Sciences and Psychology and Marcs Institute for Brain and Behaviour, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
| [b]
University Lille, CNRS, CHU Lille, UMR - SCALab - Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives, Lille, France
| [c]
Department of Geriatrics, Tourcoing Hospital, France
| [d] Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Mohamad El Haj, Laboratoire SCALab UMR CNRS 9193- University of Lille Nord de France,
Domaine du Pont de Bois, 59653 Villeneuve d’Ascq, France. E-mail: mohamad.elhaj@univ-lille3.fr.
Abstract: This study investigates phenomenological reliving of future thinking in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients and matched controls. All participants were asked to imagine in detail a future event, and afterward, were asked to rate phenomenological characteristics of their future thinking. As compared to controls, AD participants showed poor rating for reliving, travel in time, visual imagery, auditory imagery, language, and spatiotemporal specificity. However, no significant differences were observed between both groups in emotion and importance of future thinking. Results also showed lower rating for visual imagery relative to remaining phenomenological features in AD participants compared to controls; conversely, these participants showed higher ratings for emotion and importance of future thinking. AD seems to compromise some phenomenological characteristics of future thinking, especially, visual imagery; however, other phenomenological characteristics, such as emotion, seem to be relatively preserved in these populations. By highlighting the phenomenological experience of future thinking in AD, our paper opens a unique window into the conscious experience of the future in AD patients.
