Children's mental time travel into the future: a functional perspective.

Children's episodic future-thinking is typically assessed using experimental tasks that measure whether children select an item with future utility. Although these tasks-inspired by Tulving's seminal 'spoon test' (Tulving E. 2005 Episodic memory and autonoesis: uniquely human? In The missing link in cognition: origins of self-reflective consciousness [eds HS Terrace, J Metcalfe], pp. 3-56. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. [doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161564.001.0001])-are passed around age 4, they tell us little about the functional significance of children's episodic future-thinking in their day-to-day lives. We highlight how a naturalistic approach can shed light on this issue, and present a small study where we recruited mothers to report on their children's (N = 12, 3- and 4-year-olds and 6- and 7-year-olds) future-thinking over a 7-day period. We used a thematic analysis to understand why children express future thoughts and derived the following themes: (1) expressing future desires and/or intentions, (2) future-oriented information-seeking, (3) connecting present actions with future outcomes, and (4) predicting future mental/physiological states. We compare these themes with recent accounts of the functional significance of future-thinking in adults and conclude that children largely express their future-thinking verbally to request information or support from their parent-likely because they do not yet possess enough control/autonomy to independently act for their own future. Our findings both complement and extend an experimental approach and further elucidate the functional significance of mental time travel in children. This article is part of the theme issue 'Elements of episodic memory: lessons from 40 years of research'.

Theory of the remission process of schizophrenia (Nakai).

Hisao Nakai (1934-2022) surprised many experts with his prolific publication of papers ranging from meticulous therapeutic engagement and observations to original research. The "theory of the remission process of schizophrenia" is a representative example of Nakai's research and theories. The significance of Nakai's theory of the remission process is that it let the world know about the existence of schizophrenia's remission process, which had not been previously recognised. Additionally, Nakai's discovery of the "critical period" was significant and his detailed description of the same, which marks the beginning of the remission process, is widely considered to be fundamental. Nakai closely followed common phenomena that appeared accidentally, and he plotted the reactions of the autonomic nervous system, patient's dream content, and drawing content on a chart to show, for the first time, the clear emergence of a "critical period," and demonstrated the crucial role of the remission process. Nakai explained how the process progresses sequentially from the "critical period" to the "early remission period" and the "late remission period." He identified many specific indicators and discovered a great significance in innovative therapeutic engagement in each of these periods. Nakai's findings are supported by meticulous clinical observations and are free from simplifications that stem from simple theorization. In particular, close observation of the remission process was conducted with full engagement and concern of the therapist, without which, the remission process would not have been visible.

Developing human factors/ergonomics as a design discipline.

This paper deals with internal challenges that the human factors/ergonomics (HFE) research faces when wishing to strengthen its contribution to development of work systems. Three established characteristics of high-quality HFE, i.e., HFE takes a systems approach, HFE is design-driven, and HFE focuses on two closely related outcomes, performance and well-being, are taken as a starting point of a methodological discussion, in which conceptual innovations, e.g. adopting the technology-in-use perspective, are proposed to support development of HFE towards the high-quality aims. The feasibility of the proposed conceptual choices is demonstrated by introducing a naturalistic HFE analysis approach including four HFE functions. The gained experience of the use of this approach in a number of complex work domains allows the conclusion that becoming design-driven appears as that most difficult quality target for HFE to reach. Creating an own design discipline identity in a multi-voiced collaboration is the key internal challenge for human factors/ergonomics.

What the cognitive neurosciences mean to me.

Cognitive Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary area of research that combines measurement of brain activity (mostly by means of neuroimaging) with a simultaneous performance of cognitive tasks by human subjects. These investigations have been successful in the task of connecting the sciences of the brain (Neurosciences) and the sciences of the mind (Cognitive Sciences). Advances on this kind of research provide a map of localization of cognitive functions in the human brain. Do these results help us to understand how mind relates to the brain? In my view, the results obtained by the Cognitive Neurosciences lead to new investigations in the domain of Molecular Neurobiology, aimed at discovering biophysical mechanisms that generate the activity measured by neuroimaging instruments. In this context, I argue that the understanding of how ionic/molecular processes support cognition and consciousness cannot be made by means of the standard reductionist explanations. Knowledge of ionic/molecular mechanisms can contribute to our understanding of the human mind as long as we assume an alternative form of explanation, based on psycho-physical similarities, together with an ontological view of mentality and spirituality as embedded in physical nature (and not outside nature, as frequently assumed in western culture).