Erin Sotelo, “Memory for Scenes in Eye-Movement Behavior”
Mentor: Deborah Hannula, Psychology
Poster #2
Eye movements are sensitive to memory for previously seen materials. For instance, published studies have shown that participants make fewer fixations to, and sample fewer regions of, repeatedly presented, versus novel, pictures. This observation, known as the “Repetition Effect,” has been reported in some experiments even when participants mistakenly identify repeated pictures as “new” in explicit recognition decisions. Results from a recent study have suggested that this unaware repetition effect may depend on task instructions and is only evident when participants do not know that their memory is being tested. In the current study, we attempt to replicate that result. Participants in this experiment were presented with rendered scenes in two encoding blocks. Then, in block 3, some of these scenes were re-presented and some were brand new; eye movements were recorded to test memory indirectly. Subsequently, in block 4, the same set of scenes was shown again, and participants indicated whether each scene had been old (repeated) or new (seen for the first time) in the preceding block. It is predicted that participants will show a repetition effect in viewing behavior, and that this effect might be evident whether explicit recognition responses are correct or not. If so, this would suggest that memory-based viewing effects can be expressed without awareness. Future work will examine how these effects are influenced by task instructions (i.e., knowledge that memory is being tested).