FUTUROC

During a typical day, people experience future-oriented thoughts approximately every 16 minutes. These thoughts enable people to anticipate or plan events that may occur in the future, or simply to mentally escape the present. In this stream of projections, questions remain about how people can tease apart mental scenarios that genuinely belong to their personal future from more imaginary and unrealistic projections. This distinction appears critical to use future projections as reliable bases to guide choices and behaviors in daily life (e.g., emotional regulation, decision-making, social bonding). Based on recent theoretical advances in the field of future thinking, the FUTUROC research program aims to delve deeper into the role of metacognition in distinguishing personal future events from imaginary/unrealistic scenarios. To do so, we will use an original approach that combines lifespan and translational clinical research, and we will make the most of developmental and clinical variations in the availability of the "cognitive ingredients" (i.e., episodic richness, integration of events in an autobiographical context) that shape the metacognitive appraisals of imagined events. Explicit (self-reported by the individuals) and implicit (eye-tracking) metacognitive measures will be collected to deepen our knowledge on the cognitive and behavioral mechanisms underlying the metacognition of future thinking, their developmental dynamics from childhood to aging, and their modifications in the event of neuropsychological disorders following moderate to severe traumatic brain injury. Another overarching aim of the FUTUROC project is to further our understanding of the functions of future thinking in daily life, by examining the specific contribution of metacognitive evaluations of imagined events. Developmental studies will allow us to investigate the extent to which the developmental trajectory of the metacognitive appraisals of imagined events is accompanied by changes in the use of future thinking in daily life, and in the ability to predict the actual occurrence and unfolding of events in the future. In a complementary way, the clinical study in people with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury will provide new insights on the impact of future thinking deficits – and in particular of impaired metacognitive appraisals, on different domains of daily life, as well as their relationships with clinical manifestations commonly observed in this clinical population (e.g., impaired self-awareness, apathy, impulsivity).