Capacity For Foresight Research Articles

Episodic foresight deficits in regular, but not recreational, cannabis users.

Cannabis use is associated with a range of neurocognitive deficits, including impaired episodic memory. However, no study to date has assessed whether these difficulties extend to episodic foresight, a core component of which is the ability to mentally travel into one's personal future. This is a particularly surprising omission given that episodic memory is considered to be critical to engage episodic foresight. In the present study, we provide the first test of how episodic foresight is affected in the context of differing levels of cannabis use, and the degree to which performance on a measure of this construct is related to episodic memory. Fifty-seven regular cannabis users (23 recreational, 34 regular) and 57 controls were assessed using an adapted version of the Autobiographical Interview. The results showed that regular-users exhibited greater impairment of episodic foresight and episodic memory than both recreational-users and cannabis-naïve controls. These data therefore show for the first time that cannabis-related disruption of cognitive functioning extends to the capacity for episodic foresight, and they are discussed in relation to their potential implications for functional outcomes in this group.

Deconstructing the nature of episodic foresight deficits associated with chronic opiate use.

Episodic foresight refers to the capacity to mentally travel forward in time and has been linked to a wide variety of important functional behaviours. Evidence has recently emerged that chronic opiate use is associated with deficits in this critical capacity and that these difficulties are not simply a secondary consequence of broader cognitive dysfunction. The current study aimed to better understand the circumstances in which chronic opiate users might be expected to have problems with episodic foresight, by addressing whether deficits reflect compromised scene construction, self-projection, or narrative ability. Thirty-five chronic opiate users and 35 demographically matched controls completed an imagination task in which they were instructed to imagine and provide descriptions of an atemporal event, a plausible, self-relevant future event, as well as complete a narrative task. These three imagination conditions systematically varied in their demands on scene construction, self-projection, and narrative ability. Consistent with prior literature, chronic opiate users exhibited reduced capacity for episodic foresight relative to controls. However, this study was the first to show that these difficulties were independent of capacity for scene construction and narration. Instead, a specific impairment in self-projection into the future appears to contribute to the problems with episodic foresight seen in this clinical group. Deficits in self-projection into the future may have important implications in therapeutic environments given that many relapse prevention strategies rely heavily on the ability to project oneself into an unfamiliar future, free of problem substance use. A reduced capacity for episodic foresight highlights the importance of refining current relapse prevention protocols that place significant demands for mental time travel into the future. Psychosocial treatments should focus on the attainment of more immediate or short-term goals. It is difficult to delineate the effects of specific substances given long-standing drug use history common to chronic opiate users. Conclusions relating to neurological functioning are speculative given the absence of neuroimaging data.

Elias and habitus: explaining bureaucratisation processes in the Gaelic Athletic Association

Based on a case study of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ireland, this paper examines how bureaucratisation advanced and the specific structure it took. Drawing on Elias's concept of habitus, and the wider theoretical framework that informs it, the paper explains how an ambivalent attitude amongst the organisation's administrators towards volunteerism emerged and became deeply sedimented within the habitus of administrators. Over time, the habitus of administrators also became more self-steering. This more self-restrained habitus facilitated a capacity for greater calculation, foresight and coordination, a necessary precondition for more expansive bureaucratisation. As such, the main contribution of this paper is to expand existing theoretical explanations of bureaucratisation by connecting shifting inter- and intra-organisational interdependencies at different planes of integration with habitus change.

Episodic foresight deficits in long-term opiate users.

There is considerable literature showing that opiate use is associated with a range of neurocognitive deficits, including deficits in executive control and episodic memory. However, no study to date has assessed whether these neurocognitive difficulties extend to the ability to mentally time travel into one's personal future. This is a surprising omission given that executive control and episodic memory are considered to be critical for episodic foresight. In addition, opiate-related brain changes have been identified in the neural regions that underlie the capacity for episodic foresight. In the present study, we assessed how episodic foresight is affected in the context of chronic opiate use, as well as the degree to which any deficits are related to difficulties with executive control and episodic memory. Forty-eight long-term heroin users enrolled in an opiate substitution program and 48 controls were tested. The results showed that, relative to controls, the clinical group exhibited significant impairment in episodic foresight but not episodic memory (as indexed by an adapted version of the Autobiographical Interview). For executive function, the clinical group was impaired on only one of three measures (Inhibition). These data provide important preliminary evidence that episodic foresight might be particularly susceptible to the neurocognitive effects of opiate use, as the difficulties identified were not secondary to more general executive control or episodic memory impairment. Because a number of widely used relapse prevention protocols require the ability to mentally project into the future, these data have potentially important practical implications in relation to the treatment of substance dependence disorders.

Episodic foresight and aging.

Decline in episodic memory is one of the most prominent cognitive deficits seen in late adulthood. It is therefore surprising that few studies have examined how the related capacity for episodic foresight might also be affected in this age group. Preliminary evidence suggests that older adults show deficits in generating phenomenological characteristics of future events, but the critical question of whether such deficits extend to generating and executing appropriate future intentions remains to be addressed. Here, we present 2 studies. In Study 1, we report the results of our pilot testing, which was used to develop and validate stimuli for the first measure of this construct that is appropriate for use in adult populations. In Study 2, we administer this measure to 40 older and 40 younger adults. The results indicate that, relative to their younger counterparts, older adults are less likely to spontaneously acquire items that would later allow a problem to be solved, and are also less likely to subsequently use these items to solve the problems. These data provide important initial evidence that the capacity to apply episodic foresight in a functionally adaptive way is impaired in late adulthood. The results also provide important validation data for a novel measure of episodic foresight that has potential application to many other groups, including clinical groups known to have difficulties anticipating and planning for the future.

Reviews on “Progresses of Earthquake Engineering in Japan”

It seems that when human beings attain one thing, it is at the simultaneous loss of something else. Upon developing recording devices, we lose our ability to memorize. Upon creating convenient computers, we lose our ability to calculate. What, then, do progress and development really mean? In considering this, time spans become especially important. How are we to properly understand the progress and changes that have occurred in the last 3 decades in light of disaster prevention and reduction? Advances in communication technologies and developments in transportation system seem somehow to have accelerated the speed at which we live and at which our lives pass. How are we to balance the changes between progress in disaster prevention/reduction and the increasing potential risks disasters can bring due to our increasingly complex society? It seems certain that one thing has not advanced at all – the human capacity for foresight. Let us consider the span of 3 decades from another perspective: Henry Petroski, in his Design Paradigms – Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering – (Cambridge University Press, 1994), introduces the theory that every 30 years, a bridge falls – within the span of 30 years, succession in wisdom dies out. Articles published more than 30 years ago give us a unique opportunity to assess their foresight, especially those written by persons in leadership positions at the time. In the 3 years from 1973 to 1975, the journal Technocrat, published by Fuji Technology Press Ltd., presented 9 review articles on earthquake disaster prevention. They were all written by leaders in the field. An editorial reviewing urban disaster prevention in Japan was also published in Toshi bousai keikakuron (Urban Disaster Prevention Planning) (Dobunshoin) in 1986 – roughly a decade later. These 10 articles will be republished in Vol. 1 Nos. 1-3 in this journal, together with new articles reviewing progress and development afterward. This unique series will consist of 18 articles as shown in the following list. Don’t miss it! Katsuki Takiguchi Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology

Developing urban and regional foresight: exploring capacities and identifying needs in the North West

Recent changes in the context for English governance are creating new opportunities for futures thinking at urban and regional level. Drawing on a study of key stakeholders concerned with urban and regional development, this paper presents an analysis of current approaches to future thinking amongst policy-makers in England’s North West region. The study offered an opportunity to explore attitudes to foresight and existing capacities amongst public, private and voluntary organisations, to find out best practices in different sectors, and to investigate potential gaps, constraints and needs in terms of futures thinking. The paper describes the main results from the North West study and concludes by exploring ways of enhancing the capacity for territorial foresight at urban and regional levels.

Apuntes sobre el 11 de septiembre

The analysis of the immediate present should arouse the interest of professional historians as witnesses of their time. Their capacity for historical foresight generated by events such as those of 11 September ought to go beyond the immediate chronicle and aspire instead to a more reflective history. The events of 11 September should therefore be seen as part of a wider process, and as a catalyst accelerating trends which had already begun.

Psychopathic personality traits and temporal perspective: A test of the short time horizon hypothesis

A number of authors have proposed that psychopathic individuals possess an abnormally constricted time horizon (i.e., foreshortened sense of the future). This hypothesis was tested among 101 undergraduates, who were administered a battery of (1) self-report indices of psychopathic personality traits, antisocial behavior, and normal-range personality traits; (2) self-report indices of time perspective; (3) projective tests of time perspective; and (4) laboratory tasks assessing time estimation and capacity for foresight and impulse control. Measures of psychopathy/antisocial behavior tended to be negatively correlated with several self-report indices assessing preoccupation with the future and with a projective task assessing the frequency of thoughts concerning future events, although only one of the correlations with this latter task was significant. In most cases these correlations were not attributable to the variance shared by measures of psychopathy/antisocial behavior and measures of (low) anxiety-proneness, although several correlations decreased substantially after levels of harmavoidance were controlled. In contrast, measures of psychopathy/antisocial behavior were negligibly correlated with laboratory tasks. These results provide mixed support for the short time horizon hypothesis and suggest that further attention to the role of method factors in investigations of future time perspective is warranted.

A note on time, intelligence, and Rorschach movement responses.

Once in each of last three decades, at least one personality theorist has colnmenced on psychology's general indifference to cognition concerned with f~~cure (Murphy, 1936; Rapaporc, 1946; Allporr, 1955). In this paper I should like to suggest that picture is changing-that there is in progress a redefinition of to include foresight and planning. I should especially like to suggest in addition chat Rorschach test has from its inception provided us with a crude measure of apric~tde in this area. Much of paper will deal with cognitive attributes of individuals scoring high in Rorschach movement categories. Porteus, of course, has long used words foresight and in connection with his Maze Test. But since his 1950 pronouncement chat it is time to come out boldly for inclusion of in OLI~ statement of nature of intelligence (p. lo), he has been echoed, intentionally or not, by workers in diverse areas. Singer and Herman, for example, suggest that the ability to defer immediate motor response . . . with consequent resort to . . . fantasy gives man a control of his future through imagery and planning (1954, p. 329). Shoben has included the capacity for foresight and self-imposed control of behavior through anticipation of its ouccorne within his basic