Rachel West Professor Rand Honors English November 11, 2013 Inquiry Project Second Draft People are

e usually happier thinking about the future than they are thinking about the past. We already know what the past holds, whether we like it or not. The future, however, holds a seemingly endless number of possibilities. Many people attempt to separate the past from the future. In extreme cases, people have abandoned their current life, moved to another town, and started a new life with a new identity, seemingly free from the past. While we all face moments where we wish we could do the same, not everyone can physically run away from their past. Instead, we try to mentally run away from the past in our mind by thinking about the future. But how do our past experiences affect and influence our future, particularly in how we think of the future? According to researchers, one of the brains most important functions is to use stored information to imagine, simulate and predict possible future events (Schacter, Addis, and Buckner 657). Specific parts of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, are used to both retrieve memories of past events and imagine future events. Using these regions, the brain performs mental time travel, retrieving stored information and memories from the past and using these memories to construct possible future scenarios (Schacter, Addis, and Buckner 657). As it turns out, the past that most of us want to run away from is the basis on which our brain imagines the future! Even though we may not realize it in the moment, the past influences our thoughts of the future. We must remember that our thoughts form the basis for our actions, so therefore, the past influences our behavior. The past allows us to look back and consider the consequences of our previous decisions. Weighing the positive and negative implications of past decisions helps us

determine future courses of action in similar situations (Albarracn and Wyer 5). Simply put, People who have behaved in a certain way at one point in time are likely to do so again (Albarracn and Wyer 5). One very important exception to this statement occurs when the negative consequences outweigh the positive consequences to the point where an individual decides not to repeat behavior(s) in question (Albarracn and Wyer 5). Hypothetically speaking, an individual who is caught shoplifting and is arrested will most likely remember the arrest and consider the risks involved when he or she is tempted to shoplift in the future. Conversely, if an individual continually gets away with shoplifting and is never caught, the individual will most likely keep shoplifting because of the lack of punishment. The consequences of a situation whether positive or negative will influence our decision-making in future situations (Albarracn and Wyer 5). If we encounter enough of the same kind of experience over and over, classical conditioning occurs. Classical conditioning is defined as A type of learning in which a behavior (conditioned response) comes to be elicited by a stimulus (conditioned stimulus) that has acquired its power through an association with a biologically significant stimulus (unconditioned stimulus) (Gerrig and Zimbardo). In other words, an individual responds to a stimulus (a sensation from one of the senses) repeatedly with the same behavior until he or she is conditioned to automatically respond to the stimulus with the certain behavior (Gerrig and Zimbardo), until the behavior becomes reflexive and almost automatic (Hock 69). The most well-known experiment involving classical conditioning was conducted by Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (Hock 66) in 1927 (Hock 65). () Even though Pavlovs experiment was conducted with dogs, the results hold important applications for humans. Many experiments have been based on the classical conditioning and

the results of Pavlovs experiment. Classical conditioning occurs in a wide range of areas of human life, even causing fears to develop (Hock 69). An experiment based on conditioning found that children whose parents had certain phobias were likely to develop the phobias themselves (Hock 70). Interestingly, the children in this particular experiment did not come into direct contact with the subject of their phobia(s). Instead, their fear was caused by their parents own personal, fearful reactions, evidence of their phobias (Hock 70). The parents behavior set up the environment in which the childrens own opinions and perspectives were forming. The parents body language, facial expressions, words, and other expressions of fear influenced the children. Over time, the childrens past experiences with their parents phobias led to the development of the phobias in the children themselves (Hock 70). Had their parents not exhibited signs of phobias, the children probably would not have developed these fears they would not have been classically conditioned to be afraid of certain things. But because of their past experiences with their parents during childhood, many young subjects did develop the phobias (Hock 70). More studies found that for many individuals, some fears have roots in an emotionally or mentally traumatic event from the past that the individuals experienced first-hand, especially in childhood (Andy Field 4 CITATION). Researchers in one experiment found that, compared to children assigned to the control group, 29 child survivors of a severe lighting-strike showed more numerous and intense fear of thunderstorms, lightening and tornadoes and 25 teenage female survivors of a sinking cruise ship also had an excess of fears relating to ships, water travel, swimming and water, and their fear even generalized to other modes of transport (Andy Field 4 CITATION). Based on these results, Andy Field concludes that a single traumatic event can lead to intense fears of objects related to the trauma (4). Whether the fears are based on a

single event or on observations over time, or whether they were developed from first-hand experiences or observed behaviors, they are certainly rooted in past events. As illustrated, the past will sometimes haunt our future, influencing our future thoughts and decisions, for better or for worse. We can, however, also use past experiences to mentally prepare for the future, whether we anticipate facing our fears or completing another task. According to researchers, People draw on past experiences in order to imagine and simulate episodes that might occur in their personal futures. we project ourselves into the future based on what we remember from the past. Indeed, information about the past is useful only to the extent that it allows us to anticipate what may happen in the future (Schacter and Addis 27). Humans have what researchers call a prospective brain (Schacter, Addis, and Buckner 659) because, as noted in the introduction, the brain gathers memories that serve as the building blocks of future event simulation (Schacter, Addis, and Buckner 659). It is important to note that these memories may not be completely accurate when compared to what actually occurred, producing memory errors. Because of the passing of time, the influence of others statements, or even emotions attached to the memories, our brain may construct a different scenario than what occurred in the past (Schacter and Addis 27). Another important note to make is that these memories are usually not full-length (Schacter and Addis 27). Instead, the brain gathers snippets of memories from different times in the past (but still based on similar scenarios) to form the memory bank that it draws from in creating future scenarios (Schacter and Addis 27). Researchers hypothesize that the brain uses snippets of memories instead of complete, full-length memories to better maintain flexibility while imagining possible future events (Schacter and Addis 27). When the brain is more flexible, it can better adapt to any environment

both in real life and in our thought life (Schacter, Addis, and Buckner 660). This way, we are not stuck in a rigid mindset of what will occur; rather, the brain simply predicts what may occur based on our past experiences. This distinction is important to make when considering future events because many elements of the future are unpredictable. We do not know exactly what will happen, but by relying on memories of similar situations we have experienced in the past, our brain can construct different possible scenarios of what may happen. We can use this function of the brain to our advantage in every area of life. At different times, we may be preparing for a meeting with authorities, a testing session in a rigorous subject, or even in conversation with family or friends. In all of these contexts and more, we can use the memories our brains have gathered to assess what has occurred in the past, and use this assessment to predict our courses of action for similar situations in the future (Schacter, Addis, and Buckner 660). The brain is an incredible organ. This individual part of the body contains our thoughts, emotions, reflexive habits, and the communication network that guides our bodies and our daily lives. Years of memories are stored in the brain. This information is always readily available to be retrieved, whether we intentionally try to remember something or if we are prompted to remember by a trigger, an association our brain makes between a sensation in our environment and a memory. As humans, we tend to think that our past is clearly separated from our future. Many of us certainly hope so, for our past holds many struggles, fears, disappointments, and other negative elements. As we have seen in the research presented, this thinking is inaccurate compared to how the brain truly functions. The brain is naturally wired to draw upon past experiences and memories in order to better predict future events and situations. As Schacter, Addis, and Buckner concluded, Memory can be thought of as a tool used by the prospective brain to generate simulations of possible future events (660).

Works Cited Albarracn, Dolores, and Robert S. Wyer, Jr. The Cognitive Impact of Past Behavior: Influences on Beliefs, Attitudes, and Future Behavioral Decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79.1 (July 2000): 5-22. Google Scholar. Web. 29 October 2013. Field, Andy. Is conditioning a useful framework for understanding the development and treatment of phobias? Gerrig, Richard J. and Philip G. Zimbardo. Glossary of Psychological Terms. American Psychological Association. Allyn and Bacon, 2002. Web. 10 November 2013. Hock, Roger R. Forty Studies That Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research. 6 ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2008. Print. Schacter, Daniel L., and Donna Rose Addis. Constructive Memory: The Ghosts of Past and Future. Nature (4 January 2007): 27. Google Scholar. Web. 29 October 2013. Schacter, Daniel L., Donna Rose Addis, and Randy L. Buckner. Remembering the Past to Imagine the Future: The Prospective Brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience (September 2007): 657-661. Google Scholar. Web. 29 October 2013.