The Effects of Event Boundaries on the Construction of Episodic Memory: a Virtual Reality Study
(2023) PSYP01 20231Department of Psychology
- Abstract
- The construction of episodic memory is an automatic process. Event segmentation theory proposed that segmentation of the continuous perceptual stream into separate memory events occurs when changes in external boundaries lead to changes in internal perceptual and conceptual boundaries. The influence of perceptual and conceptual boundaries on episodic memory encoding has been the subject of intensive research. In particular, the hierarchical structure of perceptual and conceptual boundaries of event segmentation suggests the primacy of conceptual over perceptual boundaries. However, direct evidence for such a primacy effect is lacking. Moreover, previous studies have investigated boundary effects on event segmentation under the restricted... (More)
- The construction of episodic memory is an automatic process. Event segmentation theory proposed that segmentation of the continuous perceptual stream into separate memory events occurs when changes in external boundaries lead to changes in internal perceptual and conceptual boundaries. The influence of perceptual and conceptual boundaries on episodic memory encoding has been the subject of intensive research. In particular, the hierarchical structure of perceptual and conceptual boundaries of event segmentation suggests the primacy of conceptual over perceptual boundaries. However, direct evidence for such a primacy effect is lacking. Moreover, previous studies have investigated boundary effects on event segmentation under the restricted conditions of laboratory experiments, which limits the ecological validity and generalizability of their conclusions. In the current project, we took advantage of virtual reality (VR) to examine the joint effects of perceptual and conceptual event boundaries on episodic memory encoding. The experiment was designed as a VR salesman game, where the perceptual (“spatial”) and conceptual (“mission”) boundaries were determined by the identity of stores and customers, respectively. In the game, 26 participants had to pass different objects to different customers in different stores and had to remember the order in which the objects appeared. Four combinations of the within and across mission and spatial boundaries defined the experimental conditions. Afterwards, memory for the object order was tested outside of VR. We found the highest memory performance in the within-Mission/across-Spatial boundary condition, which was significantly higher than in the across-Mission/within-Spatial boundary and in the across-Mission/across-Spatial boundary conditions. This result suggests that crossing conceptual (“mission”) boundaries is more detrimental to memory encoding than crossing perceptual (“spatial”) boundaries. Thus, conceptual boundaries are a more powerful factor than perceptual boundaries for segmenting events in episodic memory. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9136322
- author
- Li, Yue LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- PSYP01 20231
- year
- 2023
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- episodic memory, event segmentation theory, virtual reality, spatial boundary, mission boundary
- language
- English
- id
- 9136322
- date added to LUP
- 2023-09-06 15:40:39
- date last changed
- 2023-09-06 15:40:39
@misc{9136322,
abstract = {{The construction of episodic memory is an automatic process. Event segmentation theory proposed that segmentation of the continuous perceptual stream into separate memory events occurs when changes in external boundaries lead to changes in internal perceptual and conceptual boundaries. The influence of perceptual and conceptual boundaries on episodic memory encoding has been the subject of intensive research. In particular, the hierarchical structure of perceptual and conceptual boundaries of event segmentation suggests the primacy of conceptual over perceptual boundaries. However, direct evidence for such a primacy effect is lacking. Moreover, previous studies have investigated boundary effects on event segmentation under the restricted conditions of laboratory experiments, which limits the ecological validity and generalizability of their conclusions. In the current project, we took advantage of virtual reality (VR) to examine the joint effects of perceptual and conceptual event boundaries on episodic memory encoding. The experiment was designed as a VR salesman game, where the perceptual (“spatial”) and conceptual (“mission”) boundaries were determined by the identity of stores and customers, respectively. In the game, 26 participants had to pass different objects to different customers in different stores and had to remember the order in which the objects appeared. Four combinations of the within and across mission and spatial boundaries defined the experimental conditions. Afterwards, memory for the object order was tested outside of VR. We found the highest memory performance in the within-Mission/across-Spatial boundary condition, which was significantly higher than in the across-Mission/within-Spatial boundary and in the across-Mission/across-Spatial boundary conditions. This result suggests that crossing conceptual (“mission”) boundaries is more detrimental to memory encoding than crossing perceptual (“spatial”) boundaries. Thus, conceptual boundaries are a more powerful factor than perceptual boundaries for segmenting events in episodic memory.}},
author = {{Li, Yue}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The Effects of Event Boundaries on the Construction of Episodic Memory: a Virtual Reality Study}},
year = {{2023}},
}