Running Head: MENTAL TIME TRAVEL 1

Mental Time Travel

Joseph Arron Knox

Tarleton State University

MENTAL TIME TRAVEL

Abstract

This article was found while searching the Tarleton Library databases for texts

related to “Extrasensory Perception” (ESP) in accord to “Psychology.” “The Meandering

Mind: Vection and Mental Time Travel” may not be directly correlated with ESP

pertaining to telepathy, paranormal occurrences, or psychokinesis. However, it does

relate to; sense of “self-movement” or “Vection”, possibly to actual physical movement

through “space/time”, and to “Mental Time Travel” (MTT) or the “(retrospection and

prospection)” thinking of future or past based simulations. An experiment was conducted

to analyze how the manipulation of the temporal lobe by vection (either forward or

backward) would influence the thought processes of forward thinking (towards the

future) or backward thinking (about the past). This text is a brief summary of the theories,

processes, and results that were involved. (Miles, Karpinska, Lumsden, & Macrae, 2010)

Keywords: vection, MTT, ESP, forward, backward, space/time

2

MENTAL TIME TRAVEL

Mental Time Travel

The study implemented by the School of Psychology at the University of

Aberdeen was directed in order to research the connection between “mind wandering” or

“daydreaming” in the temporal lobe, with a “grounding in perception-action” process that

corresponds with “spatial information” and the feeling of “self-movement” or “vection”

(Miles et al., 2010). The experiment consisted of a sample of 26 undergraduates from the

same university; they were asked to individually perform a “mundane task” of watching a

star screen, as this was thought to induce “mind wandering” (Miles et al., 2010). The star

screen was programed to create the feeling of vection in the subjects during this “day

dream” state, to encourage either (forward thinking) “prospective” simulations or

(backward thinking) “retrospective” simulations of thought (Miles et al., 2010). After

completing the six minutes of stargazing, the subjects were “debriefed” on if they were

“day dreaming”, for how long, and whether it was future or past based forms of thinking

in MTT or Mind Time Travel (Miles et al., 2010). The hypothesis going into the

procedure was that, “backward vection was expected to trigger participants to dwell on

the past, forward vection was expected to precipitate predominantly future-oriented

thoughts” (Miles et al., 2010).

Variables

The only independent variable in the testing was whether the star screens were

programed to move “centripetally” (towards) or “centrifugally” (away) from the center of

the animation “corresponding to the experience of backward and forward vection,

respectively” (Miles et al., 2010). This means, if the stars were moving to the center the

3

MENTAL TIME TRAVEL

subject should feel backward vection and if the stars were moving away from the center

the subject would experience forward vection. A “manipulation check” was conducted

with 19 subjects to assure that this theory of centripetal/centrifugal motion of the star

screen was in fact correlated to vection, which was proven (Miles et al., 2010).

The dependent variable in this case was whether the subject experienced MTT

associated with the past or with the future based upon which version of the independent

version they were subjected to.

Experimentation

The subjects were asked to monitor the star screen and click a button if they saw

the “target”, an “O” pop-up in the center of the screen, but if they saw a “distractor”, an

“X”, not to do anything (Miles et al., 2010). The “targets” only appeared six times during

the six-minute test for each subject, making the procedure “relatively boring” (Miles et

al., 2010). “Immediately” after the tests, the subjects are asked if they had any “task-

unrelated” thoughts during the experiment (Miles et al., 2010). The subjects that did have

“mind wondering” or experienced MTT were asked to rate their cognitions on three

linear horizontal scales; “Past Events-Future Events” (to determine where more thinking

time was spent), “Negative-Positive” (to convey the “valence” of the MTT), and “Off-

Task – On-Task” (to determine how much time was spent in MTT); the ends of the scales

are extremes and towards the middle are more balanced (Miles et al., 2010). Only one

subject stated that they did not think “Off-Task” or experience MTT, and “therefore

asked no further questions” (Miles et al., 2010).

Findings

There was not much proven change or difference in the effect that the

4

MENTAL TIME TRAVEL

independent variable had on the valence of the MTT or the amount time spent in “Off or

On-Task” thinking for any of the subjects (Miles et al., 2010). As expected by Miles et

al., (2010) subjects who experienced forward vection “reported a significantly higher

proportion of future-related” MTT than the subjects who experienced backward vection

and vice-versa. During forward vection “59.7% of subjects experienced future thoughts”

with the remainder being “past thoughts”; and during backward vection “63.4% of

subjects experienced past thoughts” with the remainder being “future thoughts” (Miles et

al., 2010).

Conclusion

The theory that is MTT is “grounded” in the “sensory-motor processing” portion

of our brain is supported by the results from the study. Motion was proven to have some

effect on how we think and perceive both behind us (in the past) and in front of us (in the

future). There are other experiments conducted around physical body motion and

“swaying” that suggests that the cells associated with MTT may not be the only ones that

can move through “space/time”. To simplify these complexities in the future, further

research should be orchestrated and serious consideration should be paid to the

possibilities of Mind Time Travel. (Miles, Karpinska, Lumsden, & Macrae, 2010)

5

MENTAL TIME TRAVEL

References

Miles, L.K., Karpinska, K., Lumsden, J., & Macrae, C.N. (2010). The meandering

mind: vection and mental time travel. PLoS ONE, 5(5), 1-6. Doi: 10.1371/

journal.pone.0010825. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.zeus.tarleton.edu:82/ehost/detail/detail?

vid=3&sid=c9b507c9-25fe-43e1-a569

d2d1c0ba0750%40sessionmgr4003&hid=4113&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d

%3d#db=a9h&AN=52682402

6