Scripts, Agents, and Interpretations: Delving Into the Valence Biases of Mental Time Travel

Comments on the original article by Liu and Szpunar (see record 2023-29014-001). As reviewed in Liu and Szpunar, psychologists have recently explored the close connection between remembering the past and imagining the future. In the last few years, they have expanded their interest beyond personal “mental time travel, MTT” (Schacter et al., 2017; Szpunar, 2010; Tulving, 1985) to collective “MTT” (Hirst et al., 2018; Merck et al., 2016; Szpunar & Szpunar, 2016; Topçu & Hirst, 2022). To a large degree, they have sought to understand how personal and collective MTT might differ—at least when the collectivity is the nation. This difference is most apparent when considering the valence of remembered past or imagined future events. In their article, Liu and Szpunar largely focused on valence biases rather than trajectories over time. They insightfully explored several factors to account for the empirical results. Here, the current authors discuss one explanation Liu and Szpunar offered—the role of scripts—and then examine two additional considerations not featured in the article. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)