Previous research suggests depressed individuals have difficulties with future directed cognitions. However, recent work has suggested that episodic simulation may represent a useful strategy for improving prospection and may also promote greater behavioural engagement. This study investigated the effect of mental imagery based episodic simulation and verbal reasoning on behavioural engagement in people with varying depression scores. The findings of this study will be presented alongside ongoing work investigating Virtual Reality as a tool for improving behavioural engagement.

Previous research suggests that clinical and sub-clinical depressive symptoms entail a ‘blunting’ of emotional anticipation. While viewing image-and-text vignettes depicting positive and negative future events, individuals experiencing elevated symptoms reported less intense anticipatory (present moment) emotions. These diminished present-moment affective responses came despite accurate anticipation of the events’ emotional consequences (anticipated emotion). The observed discrepancy is potentially significant in understanding and treating motivational problems in depression. Ongoing research objectives include identifying autonomic markers of anticipatory emotion, examining links with behaviour tendencies, and targeting anticipatory emotion as a mechanism for change.

Dampening of positive emotion is a regulation strategy that, when overused, can undermine the ability to experience positive emotion. This tendency may be a transdiagnostic factor in mental disorders, for example through increasing anhedonia, lowering mood, and promoting pessimistic thoughts and avoidant behaviour. In this talk, I will describe a recent two-arm randomised controlled trial examining the effect of brief group interventions of guided positive memories or positive future thinking on dampening. I will discuss convergent and divergent findings in these conditions and examine evidence for proposed change mechanisms.

Future thinking (FT) is key to adolescent psychopathology but remains underexplored. My work examines FT in adolescents with maltreatment histories, autism, or typical development. Online data collected during COVID-19 showed maltreated adolescents had reduced FT specificity, even after controlling for depression/anxiety. Autistic adolescents were indistinguishable from others, challenging assumptions about impaired "imagination". Across groups, reduced voluntary FT specificity linked to depression, while increased emotionality of involuntary FT linked to anxiety. These findings bridge cognitive science and developmental psychopathology, identifying novel cognitive targets for prevention and treatment in adolescent mental health