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There are powerful and conflicting arguments that motivate both internalist and externalist positions concerning the representational properties of mental states. Although a number of alternative ways of exploiting the two-dimensional apparatus will be discussed, the focus will be on Chalmers' a priori epistemic interpretation.

Imagining one's future is a ubiquitous and important aspect of mental life. In recent years, research into episodic future thinking has been one of the most rapidly expanding topics in psychology. This thesis took a multimethod approach to explore its cognitive and mnemonic characteristics. In Study 1, an internet-based study was conducted investigating subjective characteristics of autobiographical past and future events. It was found that temporal distance had parallel effects on the emotional intensity and importance of past and future events. In terms of differences, past events had more subjective detail and future events were more emotionally positive. In Study 2, the Internal (episodic) and External (000- episodic) details of past and future events were objectively measured using the Levine et al (2002) coding technique. To distinguish episodic future thinking from imagination in general, an imagined past event condition was included. Remembering was associated with greater sensory-perceptual detail than imagining (past and future) events. In Study 3, no relation was evident between episodic and non-episodic detail within past and future events and trial duration did not affect event specificity (past and future events). Study 4 explored the memory and future-thinking of an individual with amnesia following vascular dementia. This case study replicated previous studies of amnesics who are unable to imagine the future. Study 5 and 6 explored possible subprocesses underlying episodic future thinking, with some evidence for a role of executive function in the production of episodic future events. Finally, age-related differences in Internal and External detail of future thinking were observed, in addition to differences amongst finer-grained event properties. In sum, the range of approaches and methodologies adopted in these studies allowed exploration of a broad range of empirical and theoretical issues. The results documented here led to novel questions which open new avenues of research.

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Riding's (1991) wholist-analytic dimension of cognitive style proposes a unidimensional view of global-analytic constructs, however, very little empirical evidence exists in support of a relationship between the styles in the wholist-analytic family, which has led to suggestions that style is best conceptualised as a more complex multidimensional construct (Hodgkinson and Sadler-Smith, 2003). Another major problem for Riding's (1991) wholist-analytic style construct is its lack of temporal reliability (Peterson, Deary and Austin, 2003; Rezaei and Katz, 2004; Parkinson, Mullally and Redmond, 2004; Cook, 2008). Furthermore, the current thesis argues that in addition to problems of reliability, the wholist-analytic dimension lacks predictive and construct validity. This thesis outlines two major methodological limitations with the current wholist-analytic ratio measurement, which have raised doubts over the efficacy of the ratio in discriminating between part processing and whole processing style. Firstly, the wholist-analytic ratio is confounded by reflective-impulsive style differences (Kagan, Rosman, Day, Albert and Phillips, 1964). Secondly, the nature of the tasks, combined with strategy preferences, set up an asymmetry in the basis of the wholist-analytic ratio. A new measure of wholist-analytic style, hereafter called the 'Wholist-Analytic Style (WAS) Analysis' has been developed to experimentally manipulate the presentation order of the subtests and the number of parts in the geometric stimuli. Performances on the WAS analysis and the CSA were compared to other styles in the wholist-analytic family to test the unidimensional approach to style. It was found that the wholist-analytic ratio is confounded by sensitivity to reflective style, with much of its discriminatory power being limited to the first subtest, and 6 there is an asymmetry in the part-whole processing basis of the wholist-analytic ratio. Furthermore, there is a consistent relationship between reflective-impulsive style and part-whole processing. This thesis proposes the theory of diminished reflection, which renders the wholist-analytic ratio invalid in its current form. The theory can account for the hereto-unexplained lack of temporal reliability of the wholist-analytic ratio and offers a practical solution to improve both the validity and stability of the ratio. This thesis offers partial support for the unidimensional perspective of style but makes strong links between reflective-impulsive style and part-whole processing preferences.