Counterfactual thinking and the episodic system.

Abstract

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium1. IntroductionWhen something bad happens, we often think howthings could have turned out differently (e.g., “If I hadset my alarm, I would not have missed my appoint-ment.”). Imagining an alternative reality, which couldhave replaced the actual one, is called counterfactualthinking. Counterfactual thoughts influence our feel-ings and thoughts about certain past events or actions.They also inform us how to prevent the past from re-peating itself [5]. Therefore, counterfactual thinking isheavily intertwined with both past and future episodicthoughts.Recent neurological studies show that episodic pastand future thinking share several areas in the brain,which reflect common memory and social processes.A first set of areas is directly engaged by a variety ofmemory processes. Episodic memory (i.e., about spe-cific events) activates the precuneus (PC) and nearbyareas, including the retrosplenial cortex and the pos-terior cingulate cortex [4,9]. Semantic memory (i.e.,general world knowledge)recruits the middle temporalgyrus (MTG) and also the temporal pole (TP), whichplays, among other functions, an important role in rep-resenting social semantic concepts [6]. Relational pro-cessing in memory and the creation of new memorytraces engages the (para-) hippocampus (HC [1]).A second set of areas is involved in social cognition:thinking about the mind of oneself or other persons(mentalizing). According to Van Overwalle [10] men-talizing about temporary goals, intentions or desiresof self or other persons activates the temporo-parietaljunction (TPJ); while inferring more long-term social