FARSIGHT Neurofutures w/ Kerstin Preuschoff and Ewa Lombard
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May 8, 2025 Kerstin Preuschoff and Ewa Lombard are neuroscientists at LUCID in Geneva, specializing in decision-making and uncertainty. They dive into how our brains envision the future and why some cultures handle uncertainty better than others. The duo discusses the emotional influences on decision-making and diverse cultural perspectives on time. They also explore the creative limitations of adults versus children, the impact of optimism on mental health, and the intriguing phenomenon of aphantasia, revealing the complexities of our cognitive processes.
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Three Types of Future Thinking
- Future thinking includes prospective memory, episodic future memory, and delay discounting processes.
- We imagine consequences of decisions, scenarios involving ourselves, and how we value future rewards.
Brain Overlap of Past and Future
- Memory and future thinking engage overlapping brain areas including the hippocampus.
- Our brain uses the same regions to recall the past and imagine the future.
Challenges in Future Thinking
- Temporal discounting biases us to prefer immediate rewards over future ones.
- We dislike uncertainty and often miss opportunities it presents.