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

出于许多原因，人们可能希望对生活中的事件有不同的想法或感受。例子包括想要超越过去的负面经验或为即将到来的挑战做好最佳准备。这个项目的研究探讨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的。当回忆过去的经历或想象未来的经历时，人们经常在脑海中“看到”这些事件。人们通常从自己的第一人称视角看待事件，通过自己的眼睛观察情况。然而，其他时候，人们从第三人称的角度看待他们心目中的事件，从观察者的角度看待他们自己。拟议的研究开发和测试了一个新的模型，表明心理意象中的视觉视角从根本上塑造了人们如何解释和回应他们所描绘的事件。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，通过最少的训练，以期望的方式修改他们的情绪反应，加强他们的亲密关系，并激励自己的行为与他们的价值观一致。这项研究测试了关于第一人称和第三人称的核心功能的假设，通过实验操纵这些角度的个人采用，因为他们的图片目标事件的个人意象。根据所提出的模型，第三人称意象导致人们反思更广泛的影响和连贯的意义的图片事件。一系列的实验测试这种连贯性建设功能的第三人称意象澄清和集中人们的情绪反应，相对于无差别的情绪反应的人与第一人称意象的经验。其他实验探索了第三人称意象的这种预测效果如何被用来提高个体在威胁情况下的表现。该模型进一步表明，第一人称意象的功能，以提高人们的意识，他们的直觉反应和内隐评价。一系列实验测试了这种增强的自我洞察力与第一人称意象是否可以用来帮助个人识别对亲密他人的信任的内隐感觉，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其明确价值观相冲突的直觉反应，从而帮助他们在冲突情况下锻炼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.