title: Moral judgment in episodic amnesia.
abstract: To investigate the role of episodic thought about the past and future in moral judgment, we administered a well-established moral judgment battery to individuals with hippocampal damage and deficits in episodic thought (insert Greene et al. 2001). Healthy controls select deontological answers in high-conflict moral scenarios more frequently when they vividly imagine themselves in the scenarios than when they imagine scenarios abstractly, at some personal remove. If this bias is mediated by episodic thought, individuals with deficits in episodic thought should not exhibit this effect. We report that individuals with deficits in episodic memory and future thought make moral judgments and exhibit the biasing effect of vivid, personal imaginings on moral judgment. These results strongly suggest that the biasing effect of vivid personal imagining on moral judgment is not due to episodic thought about the past and future. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
authors.affiliation: Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri.
authors.forename: Carl F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Craver
authors.affiliation: Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri.
authors.forename: Nazim
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Keven
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Donna
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kwan
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, Haverford College, Haverford, Penninsylvania.
authors.forename: Jake
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kurczek
authors.affiliation: Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.|Neuroscience Program, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
authors.forename: Melissa C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Duff
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto and the Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: R Shayna
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Rosenbaum
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000647:Amnesia / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D008875:Middle Aged; D009014:Morals; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests
keywords: decision-making; episodic memory; mental time travel; moral reasoning; prospection