A new look at perspective: Novel insights into the function of first-person and third-person imagery

出于许多原因，人们可能想要以不同的方式思考或感受他们生活中的事件。例如，想要超越过去的负面经历，或为即将到来的挑战做好最佳准备。这个项目的研究探索了人们如何利用他们对生活事件的想法的共同特征来实现这些预期的目标。当人们回忆过去的经历或想象未来的经历时，经常会在脑海中“看到”那些事件。人们通常从自己的第一人称角度来看待事件，通过自己的眼睛来看待情况。然而，其他时候，人们从第三人称的角度来看待他们心目中的事情，从观察者的角度来看待自己。这项拟议的研究开发并测试了一种新的模型，该模型表明，心理意象中的视觉视角从根本上塑造了人们对他们所描绘的事件的解释和反应。这些对意象视角功能的独特见解将有助于开发实用的意象工具，人们可以使用这些工具来以期望的方式调整他们的情绪反应，加强他们的亲密关系，并激励自己采取与他们的价值观一致的行为。本研究通过实验操纵个人在描绘目标事件时采用了哪些视角来检验关于第一人称和第三人称意象核心功能的假设。根据所提出的模型，第三人称意象引导人们思考所描绘事件的更广泛的含义和连贯的含义。一系列实验测试了第三人称意象的这种凝聚力建立功能是否澄清并聚焦了人们的情感反应，相对于人们在第一人称意象中经历的无差别的情感反应。其他实验探索了第三人称图像的这种预测效果如何被用来改善个人在威胁环境中的表现。该模型进一步表明，第一人称意象能够提高人们对自己的直觉反应和内隐评价的意识。一系列实验测试了这种通过第一人称意象增强的自我洞察力是否可以用来帮助个人识别对亲密他人的内隐信任感，从而加强对这些关系的承诺。最后一系列实验测试第一人称意象是否能让人们洞察与他们明确的价值观相冲突的本能反应，从而帮助他们在冲突情况下进行自我控制并按照自己的价值观行事。

For many reasons, people might want to think or feel differently about events in their lives. Examples include wanting to move beyond past negative experiences or optimally preparing for upcoming challenges. The research in this project explores how people can use a common feature of their thoughts about life events to achieve these desired ends. When recalling past experiences or imagining future ones, people frequently "see" those events in their mind's eye. Often people see events from their own first-person perspective, looking out at the situation through their own eyes. However, other times people see events in their mind's eye from a third-person perspective, seeing themselves in the image from an observer's vantage-point. The proposed research develops and tests a new model suggesting that visual perspective in mental imagery fundamentally shapes how people interpret and respond to the events they picture. These unique insights into the function of imagery perspective will help to develop practical imagery tools that people can use, with minimal training, to modify their emotional responses in desired ways, strengthen their close relationships, and motivate themselves to act consistent with their values.This research tests hypotheses about the core functions of first-person and third-person imagery by experimentally manipulating which of these perspectives individuals adopt as they picture target events. According to the proposed model, third-person imagery leads people to reflect on the broader implications and coherent meaning of the pictured event. A series of experiments tests whether this coherence-building function of third-person imagery clarifies and focuses people's emotional reactions, relative to the undifferentiated emotional reactions people experience with first-person imagery. Other experiments explore how this predicted effect of third-person imagery may be used to improve the performance of individuals in threatening situations. The model further indicates that first-person imagery functions to heighten people's awareness of their gut reactions and implicit evaluations. A series of experiments tests whether this enhanced self-insight with first-person imagery can be used to help individuals recognize implicit feelings of trust towards close others and thereby strengthen commitment to those relationships. A final series of experiments tests whether first-person imagery can give people insight into gut reactions that conflict with their explicit values, thereby helping them exercise self-control and behave in line with their values in situations of conflict.