the most unusual of circumstances a
co-worker of his asked him one day if he
could go in his stead
to this small town in Germany so
Bertrand agreed to go while he was there
he also learned that at acquaintance of
his that he hasn’t healed in a long long
time was also in town and they decided
to get together in a bar that night the
bar was crowded so they had to wait
outside in line it was cold so at some
point Bertrand turned around cup his
hands and he started to blow hot air
into them at that very point a woman
sitting standing right next to him also
turn around cup her hands and blew hot
air into them they both look at each
other and chuckled and started chatting
at that point the taxi came back and
this woman Laura left the bar but she
did not left
Bertrand mind the next day Bertram was
waiting in a bench for the bus that
would take him to the train station the
bus was running late and at that point
he saw a bicycle sharply stopping by
right in front of him took him about a
second to recognize that it was Laura in
that bike so he approached her they
exchanged phone numbers as of now they
have been married for 10 years and I
recently learned that they’re respecting
their second child for Bertrand tells
his story it is impossible not to
imagine the many ways in which he could
have failed to meet his wife what if his
coworker hadn’t asked him to go to this
small town what if his acquaintance
wasn’t there or hadn’t planned to go to
the park or if the bar wasn’t crowded or
if he wasn’t called or what if the light
had actually been green
and such Lara didn’t have to stop by in
front of the bench when we let our
imagination wandering the mysterious
realms of the what-ifs when we imagined
alternative ways in which past events
could have happened we engage in what
psychologists known as counterfactual
thinking thoughts that are contrary to
fact but what if counterfactual thoughts
Hasnat are not as mysterious as we think
they could be after all when we think
about the many ways in which Bertrand
could have failed to meet his wife we
think of some predictable ways in which
events could have changed for instance
we tend to think what if for instance
the bus was on time rather than late or
what if the light was green rather than
red sometimes we also can engage in
other kinds of contractual thinking
reminding imagine far-fetched
possibilities for instance we might
imagine what happens if the next day
Laura had forgotten all about the night
before or what if all of a sudden
gravity changed in this unusual way such
that the bike right in front of
Bertrand’s bench was rocketed up to the
sky preventing Bertrand for ever meeting
Laura and marrying her why don’t we
engage in those more far-fetched
possibilities in 1980 cognitive
scientist Douglas Hofstadter suggested
that maybe the reason why that happened
is because our mind have some natural
fault lines systematic ways in which we
alter reality in our imagination ever
since many cognitive psychologists have
engaged in what I call cognitive
seismology it’s our scientific attempt
to map the mental fault lines of our
imagination one of the most influential
cognitive seismologists is Nobel Prize
winner
dan Kahneman in a series of pioneering
studies conducted in the 1980s Kahneman
and collaborators presented participants
with a number of vignettes
that included what they call junctures
causally relevant events that even done
would prevent a certain outcome to occur
so for instance one of such vignettes
depicts the story of this young
gentleman who driving under the
influence driving under the influence
just fails to notice a red light and
crashes into an another car that is
coming in the opposite direction and
kills the driver immediately when you
asked about the ways in which those
events could have happened differently
people tend to normally undo the same
events in fact people seem to undo
events that are abnormal or unusual
think about again the case of Bertrand
we tend to think for instance what would
have happened if the bus had actually
been on time because being late is a
rather unusual event in Germany where
buses are so beautiful right
another possibility is for us to think
what would have happened if the light
hadn’t turned red but we don’t think
about this unusual event of gravity
changing drastically driving gravity
usually never changes so this view which
is sometimes home as the norm theory had
led an enormous amount of research in
trying to understand what kinds of
thoughts we think counterfactual
alternatives to but in addition to that
psychologists can also wonder why we
engage in contractual thinking so
frequently and so often and the key to
understand why is also to understand
when if you’re like me you normally
engage in contractual thinking when you
are planning to do a certain action and
you fail if only I had gone to bed
earlier I would have been able to be
more relaxed and do better in this exam
or if only I had to stop at that gas
station I wouldn’t have run out of gas
now these kinds of thoughts there are
usually better alternative to bad
outcomes are known as upward
counterfactual thoughts and in general
when we
engaging upward counterfactual thinking
we feel some kind of regret now less
often but sometimes it does occur we
engage in another kind of contractual
thinking in which we imagine how good
events could have been worse how
diamines that penalty kick we would have
lost the game or had I been in that line
right next to me I wouldn’t have been
able to get ticket to come to this TED
talk this downward contractions are also
usually associated with feelings but
these times these feelings are feelings
of relief almost twenty years ago
psychologist Neil Rose and Jose Olsen
generated what they call the
counterfactual the functional theory of
counterfactual thinking according to
this theory we engage in upper
contractual thinking because we are
preparing to do better in the future
we rehearse alternative ways in which
past events could have occurred in order
to improve our future performance
likewise when we engage in downward
contractual when we imagine worse ways
in which an event could have happened
we’re actually doing that to make to
feel better about what we achieved or
what we attained the problem with this
view is that this is not always the case
consider the case of Kim Kim was a
flight attendant that was scheduled to
fly in the United Airlines flight 93 the
time before and this is in 2011
September 11 2001 the night before she
called the calling and asking if she
could switch the turn with her that
prevent her from dying in the crash of
the airplane in Pennsylvania you would
think that the fact that she constantly
engages in counterfactual thoughts about
what would have happened had he not
changed the turn the night before would
give her his feelings of relief he will
be wrong she’s haunted by these
counterfactual thoughts over and over
again and make him feel incredibly sad
and regretful or think about this other
case in which we engage in contractual
thoughts about events that we know are
never
to be repeated I’m thinking about the
case of Anastasia Anastasia is a young
gymnast who can’t help but repeat over
and over again in her mind this one
mistake she made and that left her
paraplegic
why is she constantly ruminating over
and over again this contractual thought
she won’t be able to walk again much
less to do in gymnastics
what kind of future event is she trying
to improve upon our thoughts in our lab
with my collaborators is that the reason
why these cases appear challenging is
because we’re getting the function of
these counterfactual thoughts wrong not
all contractual thinking allows us to
plan for the future or make us feel
better about the present sometimes
counterfactual thinking has a different
function it helps us change our past but
to tell you how that is possible I need
to tell you a little bit about memory
according to the traditional view in
memory when you engage in certain
experience and you have a certain and
you experience a certain event the
information tends to be consolidated
stored unchanged until next time that
you retrieve it however in the last
three or four decades it has become
pretty evident that every time that you
remember a memory that memory becomes
liable and prone to modification you can
actually change a little bit the content
of the memory at the time of retrieval
in fact evidence suggests that every
time that you remember a memory you
update it and you edit it a little bit
but so what if engaging in contractual
thinking is a good strategy for us to
change the content of our out of our
graphical memories at the time of
retrieval to test that possibility my
collaborators and I asked participants
to come to the lab and we asked them to
think and remember a specific
autobiographical event that happened to
them in the past a week later they came
back to the
and we asked them to engage in
contractual thinking half of those
memories they thought alternatives to
several times as if they were ruminating
and the other half the only thought
about an alternative an alternative way
in which it could have occurred only
once and then we compared those that
were repeatedly singulated
versus those that were only simulated
ones and what our results suggest is
that the more you think about how
another – how certain event could have
occurred the less likely you think is
that your memory could have occurred
differently we suggest that this effect
is our memory helping us to come to
grips with the past by taking away our
attention from possibilities that are
very unlikely to have happened but not
everyone is in the same boat as Bertrand
Bertrand was very happy every time that
he remembered a specific episodes that
happen in his past and imagining
alternative ways in which those events
could have occurred sometimes
unfortunately people are haunted by
memories that they would rather not
remember sometimes people are haunted by
contractual thoughts that they would
rather not have so the question now is
can we harness the power of
counterfactual thinking to change the
emotion and the valence of
autobiographical memories that we rather
not have autobiographical memories that
are debilitating and incapacitating that
has been the leading question of our
research in the lab for the past year a
pilot study conducted in the lab invited
participants to come to the lab and
produce a number of out the biographical
memories of regretful events in their
life and we asked them to give us some
measures of valence and some measures of
intensity of emotion a week later they
asked them to come back to the lab to
either engage in contractual thinking or
just simply we remember those event and
a day later they come back and we asked
them to remember the events once again
and we measure the valence and the
intensity of the
memories that allows us to compare the
memories once reactivated to the
original memories all the preliminary
our results suggest that engaging in
counterfactual thinking about negative
events that could have been better
changes a little bit the valence of
those memories in a way that is
different from just merely reactivating
them in memory
conversely engaging into a
counterfactual thinking about positive
memories changes the intensity with
which we feel those emotions our hope is
to harness what we learn from the
mechanisms about contractual thinking in
the context of memory reactivating to
see we can use that knowledge to change
people’s memories in a clinical context
the idea is an imagination is a very
powerful tool that helps us not only
plan for the future and makes us feel
better about the present but also can
help us change our memories about the
past thank you [Applause]