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Scene Perception and Event Comprehension Theory (SPECT) posits that understanding picture stories depends upon a coordination of two processes: (1) integrating new information into the current event model that is coherent with it (i.e., mapping) and (2) segmenting experiences into distinct event models (i.e., shifting). In two experiments, we investigated competing hypotheses regarding how viewers coordinate the mapping process of bridging inference generation and the shifting process of event segmentation by manipulating the presence/absence of Bridging Action pictures (i.e., creating coherence gaps) in wordless picture stories. The Computational Effort Hypothesis says that experiencing a coherence gap prompts event segmentation and the additional computational effort to generate bridging inferences. Thus, it predicted a positive relationship between event segmentation and explanations when Bridging Actions were absent. Alternatively, the Coherence Gap Resolution Hypothesis says that experiencing a coherence gap prompt generating a bridging inference to close the gap, which obviates segmentation. Thus, it predicted a negative relationship between event segmentation and the production of explanations. Replicating prior work, viewers were more likely to segment and generate explanations when Bridging Action pictures were absent than when they were present. Crucially, the relationship between explanations and segmentation was negative when Bridging Action pictures were absent, consistent with the Coherence Gap Resolution Hypothesis. Unexpectedly, the relationship was positive when Bridging Actions were present. The results are consistent with SPECT's assumption that mapping and shifting processes are coordinated, but how they are coordinated depends upon the experience of a coherence gap.

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People spontaneously segment an observed everyday activity into discrete, meaningful events, but segmentation can be modified by task goals. Asking young adults to attend to event segmentation while watching movies of everyday actions improved their memory up to 1 month later (Flores et al., 2017). Does attending to event segmentation improve memory across the lifespan? Participants between the ages of 20 and 79 watched movies of actors performing everyday activities while intentionally encoding them for a recall and a recognition memory test 1 week (Experiment 1) or 1 month (Experiment 2) later. In addition to intentionally encoding the movies, half of the participants segmented the movies into fine-grained events. Young adults who segmented recalled more words in their recall responses than those who intentionally encoded 1 week and 1 month later. Middle-aged adults benefited from the intervention after a 1-week delay but not after a 1-month delay. Older adults over the age of 70 did not benefit from attending to segmentation. Of those who segmented, young and older adults showed similar agreement about the locations of event boundaries. Together, the results suggest that older adults are less able, compared to young adults, to maintain or retrieve well-encoded event memories after a delay. In addition, individual differences in segmentation agreement predicted memory up to 1 month later, regardless of age. These results suggest a practical and easy-to-implement intervention for improving recall of everyday events in young and middle-aged adults that is ineffective in older adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

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People spontaneously segment continuous ongoing actions into sequences of events. Prior research found that gaze similarity and pupil dilation increase at event boundaries and that older adults segment more idiosyncratically than do young adults. We used eye tracking to explore age-related differences in gaze similarity (i.e., the extent to which individuals look at the same places at the same time as others) and pupil dilation at event boundaries. Older and young adults watched naturalistic videos of actors performing everyday activities while we tracked their eye movements. Afterward, they segmented the videos into subevents. Replicating prior work, we found that pupil size and gaze similarity increased at event boundaries. Thus, there were fewer individual differences in eye position at boundaries. We also found that young adults had higher gaze similarity than older adults throughout an entire video and at event boundaries. This study is the first to show that age-related differences in how people parse continuous everyday activities into events may be partially explained by individual differences in gaze patterns. Those who segment less normatively may do so because they fixate less normative regions. Results have implications for future interventions designed to improve encoding in older adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

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Spatial memory is important for supporting the successful completion of everyday activities and is a particularly vulnerable domain in late life. Grouping items together in memory, or chunking, can improve spatial memory performance. In memory for desktop scale spaces and well-learned large-scale environments, error patterns suggest that information is chunked in memory. However, the chunking mechanisms involved in learning new large-scale, navigable environments are poorly understood. In five experiments, two of which included young and older adult samples, participants watched movies depicting routes through building-sized environments while attempting to remember the locations of cued objects. We tested memory for the cued objects with virtual pointing, distance estimation, and map drawing tasks after participants viewed each route. Patterns of error failed to show consistent evidence of chunking in spatial memory across all experiments. One possibility is that chunking in spatial memory relies on visual perceptual grouping mechanisms that are not in play during encoding of large-scale spaces encountered through extended route experiences that do not afford concurrent viewing of target locations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

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We segment what we read into meaningful events, each separated by a discrete boundary. How does event segmentation during encoding relate to the structure of story information in long-term memory? To evaluate this question, participants read stories of fictional historical events and then engaged in a post-reading verb arrangement task. In this task, participants saw verbs from each of the events placed randomly on a computer screen, and then they arranged the verbs into groups onscreen based on their understanding of the story. Participants who successfully comprehended the story placed verbs from the same event closer to each other than verbs from different events, even after controlling for orthographic, text-based, semantic, and situational overlap between verbs. Thus, how people structure story information into separate events during online comprehension is associated with how that information is stored in memory. Specifically, story information within an event is bound together in memory more so than information between events.

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While semantic and episodic memory may be distinct memory systems, their interdependence is substantial. For instance, decades of work have shown that semantic knowledge facilitates episodic memory. Here, we aim to clarify this interactive relationship by determining whether semantic knowledge facilitates the acquisition of new episodic memories, in part, by influencing an encoding mechanism, event segmentation. In the current study, we evaluated the extent to which semantic knowledge shapes how people segment ongoing activity and how such knowledge-related benefits in segmentation affect episodic memory performance. To investigate these effects, we combined data across three studies that had young and older adults segment and remember videos of everyday activities that were either familiar or unfamiliar to their age group. We found age-related differences in event-segmentation ability and memory performance, but only when older adults lacked semantic knowledge. Most importantly, when they had access to relevant semantic knowledge, older adults segmented and remembered information similar to young adults. Our findings indicate that older adults can use semantic knowledge to effectively encode and retrieve everyday information. These effects suggest that future interventions can leverage older adults' intact semantic knowledge to attenuate age-related deficits in event segmentation and episodic long-term memory.

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How does viewers' knowledge guide their attention while they watch everyday events, how does it affect their memory, and does it change with age? Older adults have diminished episodic memory for everyday events, but intact semantic knowledge. Indeed, research suggests that older adults may rely on their semantic memory to offset impairments in episodic memory, and when relevant knowledge is lacking, older adults' memory can suffer. Yet, the mechanism by which prior knowledge guides attentional selection when watching dynamic activity is unclear. To address this, we studied the influence of knowledge on attention and memory for everyday events in young and older adults by tracking their eyes while they watched videos. The videos depicted activities that older adults perform more frequently than young adults (balancing a checkbook, planting flowers) or activities that young adults perform more frequently than older adults (installing a printer, setting up a video game). Participants completed free recall, recognition, and order memory tests after each video. We found age-related memory deficits when older adults had little knowledge of the activities, but memory did not differ between age groups when older adults had relevant knowledge and experience with the activities. Critically, results showed that knowledge influenced where viewers fixated when watching the videos. Older adults fixated less goal-relevant information compared to young adults when watching young adult activities, but they fixated goal-relevant information similarly to young adults, when watching more older adult activities. Finally, results showed that fixating goal-relevant information predicted free recall of the everyday activities for both age groups. Thus, older adults may use relevant knowledge to more effectively infer the goals of actors, which guides their attention to goal-relevant actions, thus improving their episodic memory for everyday activities.

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We deconstruct continuous streams of action into smaller, meaningful events. Research has shown that the ability to segment continuous activity into such events and remember their contents declines with age; however, knowledge improves with age. We investigated how young and older adults use knowledge to more efficiently encode and later remember information from everyday events by having participants view a series of self-paced slideshows depicting everyday activities. For some activities, older adults produce more normative scripts than do young adults (older adult activities) and for other activities, young adults produce more normative scripts than do older adults (young adult activities). Overall, participants viewed event boundaries longer than within events (i.e., the event boundary advantage) replicating prior research (e.g., Hard, Recchia, & Tversky, 2011). Importantly, older adults demonstrated the boundary advantage for the older adult activities but not the young adult activities, and they also had better recognition memory for the older adult activities than the young adult activities. We also found that the magnitude of a participant's boundary advantage was associated with better memory, but only for the less knowledgeable activities. Results indicate that older adults use their intact knowledge to better encode and remember everyday activities, but that knowledge and event segmentation may have independent influences on event memory.

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Past research suggests that recognizing scene gist, a viewer's holistic semantic representation of a scene acquired within a single eye fixation, involves purely feed-forward mechanisms. We investigated whether expectations can influence scene categorization. To do this, we embedded target scenes in more ecologically valid, first-person-viewpoint image sequences, along spatiotemporally connected routes (e.g., an office to a parking lot). We manipulated the sequences' spatiotemporal coherence by presenting them either coherently or in random order. Participants identified the category of one target scene in a 10-scene-image rapid serial visual presentation. Categorization accuracy was greater for targets in coherent sequences. Accuracy was also greater for targets with more visually similar primes. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether targets in coherent sequences were more predictable and whether predictable images were identified more accurately in Experiment 1 after accounting for the effect of prime-to-target visual similarity. To do this, we removed targets and had participants predict the category of the missing scene. Images were more accurately predicted in coherent sequences, and both image predictability and prime-to-target visual similarity independently contributed to performance in Experiment 1. To test whether prediction-based facilitation effects were solely due to response bias, participants performed a two-alternative forced-choice task in which they indicated whether the target was an intact or a phase-randomized scene. Critically, predictability of the target category was irrelevant to this task. Nevertheless, results showed that sensitivity, but not response bias, was greater for targets in coherent sequences. Predictions made prior to viewing a scene facilitate scene-gist recognition.

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