Understanding Mental Time Travel and Autism

A PlainSpeak Plain Language version for Lay Reader

What is Mental Time Travel (MTT)?

MTT is our brain's amazing ability to think back to past events or imagine what might happen in the future. For example, you might think back to a fun birthday party or imagine what your next vacation will be like. MTT helps us move through time in our minds, so we can remember, plan, and dream.

How Do Scientists Measure MTT?
Scientists have a way to measure this ability called the MTT Task. In this task, people are given words like "graduation" or "vacation" and asked to either remember something from their own life or imagine something in the future. For example, you might think of your own graduation day in the past or imagine what a future vacation could be like.

Scientists use this task to understand how well people can remember specific events from their lives (like their own birthday) or think about events that could happen in the future (like planning a holiday). This helps them learn more about how our brains work when we think about the past and future, especially in people with different conditions like aging or mental health issues.

MTT and Autism: What Do We Know?

Scientists are starting to learn that autistics might think about the past and future a little differently. Some autistics might find it hard to remember specific personal events or to imagine detailed future plans. This could be because of differences in how their brains work when recalling memories or imagining the future.

But it's important to remember that everyone with autism is different. Some may find these tasks easy, while others may find them more challenging. By studying how autistics use MTT, scientists hope to learn more about how they think about time and how we can better support them.

Future research could look at

• How Autistics Remember: Understanding how autistics remember personal events and how this might be different from others.
• Imagination and Planning: Learning more about how autistics imagine the future and plan for it.
• Brain Studies: Using special brain scans to see how the parts of the brain involved in MTT might work differently in autistics.

-------

Versions of this post: [MTT PlainSpeak For the Lay Reader], [MTT For the Academic/Science Reader], [A Simple Definition of MTT]

Related Posts: [Autism Theories], [Sensorimotor], [Neuroscience of Autism]