Memory--Research

Previous research indicates that event boundaries can hinder or facilitate memory. The present study aimed to examine the influence of physical context changes (i.e., event boundaries) on the memory for actors and the actions they performed. Undergraduate participants (N=121) from Florida Atlantic University viewed two different video clip set types of actors performing various actions. The continuous context (CC) video set type included four different actors performing actions in the same physical context. The discontinuous context (DC) video set type contained four actors, the first, second, and fourth actors shown in each set performed actions in the same physical context (e.g., a library), while the third actor in the set performed an action in a different physical context (e.g., a playground). After viewing the videos, memory for the actors and the actions was evaluated using the Person-Action-Conjunction (PAC) test in a retrieval session. Participants provided significantly more ‘yes’ responses to old item than to conjunction items at retrieval. No significant differences in the proportion of ‘yes’ were found between the CC video items and DC video items. These results could be due to the manipulation of physical context not being sufficiently strong to influence event segmentation.

Laney, Campbell, Heuer, and Reisberg (2004) proposed that the preferential recall of
central relative to peripheral information in a negative event (known as "memory
narrowing") is the product of presenting participants with a visually arousing attention
magnet -- not negative emotion, as the Easterbrook ( 1959) hypothesis suggests. Laney et
al. used conceptually meaningful (or thematically arousing) events to stimulate an
emotional response in participants instead of visual arousal and found evidence that
negative arousal improves memory for all categories of details. The current study tested
Laney et al. 's theory that a visually arousing stimulus, rather than negative arousal, is
responsible for memory nan·owing as well as their position that negative arousal benefits
recall of both central and peripheral information. Support was found for both assertions
of Laney et al. The presence of a visually salient and emotionally provoking detail
produced an effect similar to the traditional memory narrowing pattem and exposure to
the negative thematic climax resulted in improved memory performance for all the detail
categories. However, this latter effect was observed only for the female participants. No
evidence was found to support the Easterbrook hypothesis.