mental simulation
Thinking something through
Mental simulation is the act of imagining a scenario, process, or sequence of events in your mind—running through possibilities without physically enacting them.
Athletes use mental simulation to rehearse performances; problem-solvers use it to anticipate outcomes: I mentally simulated the conversation before calling her.
The capacity underlies planning, empathy, and counterfactual thinking—imagining what might happen or might have been.
- mental rehearsalPracticing something mentally
- dress rehearsalComplete practice performance
- daydreamingIdle mental wandering
- imaginationFaculty for forming ideas
- visualizationForming mental or graphical images
theory of mind · future self · counterfactual · decision-making · game plan · conceptualization · prospection · reasoning · abstract thinking · ideation · thought experiment · walking through · role-playing · problem-solving · planning · self-reflection · memory recall · scenario
mental simulationreal-world experience
Knowledge from actual living
lived experience · direct experience · physical reality · hands-on experience · doing
mental simulationsensory experience
Awareness through bodily senses
observation · empirical observation · rote memory · automatic response · reflexive action