Metamemory for pictures of naturalistic scenes: Assessment of accuracy and cue utilization

Memory for naturalistic pictures is exceptionally good. However, little is known about people’s ability to monitor the memorability of naturalistic pictures. We report the first systematic investigation into the accuracy and basis of metamemory in this domain. People studied pictures of naturalistic scenes, predicted their chances of recognizing each picture at a later test (judgment of learning, JOL), and completed a recognition memory test. Across three experiments, JOLs revealed substantial accuracy. This was due to people basing their JOLs on multiple cues, most of which predicted recognition memory. Identified cues include intrinsic picture attributes (e.g., peacefulness of scenes; scenes with or without persons) and extrinsic aspects of the study situation (e.g., presentation frequency; semantic distinctiveness of scenes with respect to the context). This work provides a better understanding of metamemory for pictures and it demonstrates close parallels between metamemory for naturalistic scenes and verbal materials.

Brief report: Attentional Bias towards Social Interactions during Viewing of Naturalistic Scenes

Human visual attention is readily captured by the social information in scenes. Multiple studies have shown that social areas of interest (AOIs) such as faces and bodies attract more attention than non-social AOIs (e.g. objects or background). However, whether this attentional bias is moderated by the presence (or absence) of a social interaction remains unclear. Here, the gaze of 70 young adults was tracked during the free viewing of 60 naturalistic scenes. All photographs depicted two people, who were either interacting or not. Analyses of dwell time revealed that more attention was spent on human than background AOIs in the interactive pictures. In non-interactive pictures, however, dwell time did not differ between AOI type. In the time-to-first-fixation analysis, humans always captured attention before other elements of the scene, although this difference was slightly larger in the interactive than non-interactive scenes. These findings confirm the existence of a bias towards social information in attentional capture, and suggest that the presence of social interaction may be important in inducing a similar social bias in attentional engagemente. Together with previous research using less naturalistic stimuli, these findings suggest that social interactions carry additional social value that guides one's perceptual system.

What makes up a reportable event in a language? Motion events as an important test domain in linguistic typology

Numerous crosslinguistic studies on motion events have been carried out in investigating the scope of the two-fold typology “path versus manner” (Talmy 1985, 2000) and its possible implications. This typological contrast is too narrow as it stands, however, to account for the diversity found both within and across types. The present study is based on what can be termed a process-oriented perspective. It includes the analyses of all relevant conceptual domains notably the domain of temporality, in addition to space, and thus goes beyond previous studies. The languages studied differ typologically as follows: path is typically expressed in the verb in French and Tunisian Arabic in contrast to manner of motion in English and German, while in the temporal domain aspect is expressed grammatically in English and Tunisian Arabic but not in German and French. The study compares the representations which speakers construct when forming a reportable event as a response to video clips showing a series of naturalistic scenes in which an entity moves through space. The analysis includes the following conceptual categories: (1) the privileged event layer (manner vs. path) which drives the selection of breakpoints in the formation of event units when processing the visual input; (2) the privileged category in spatial framing (figure-based/ground-based) and (3) viewpoint aspect (phasal decomposition or not). We assume that each of these three cognitive categories is shaped specifically by language structure (both system and repertoire) and language use (frequency of constructions). The findings reveal systematic differences both across, as well as within, typologically related languages with respect to (1) the basic event type encoded, (2) the changes in quality expressed, (3) the total number of path segments encoded per situation, and (4) the number of path segments packaged into one utterance. The findings reveal what can be termed language-specific default settings along each of the conceptual dimensions and their interrelations which function as language specific attentional templates.

Characterising the hippocampal response to perception, construction and complexity

ABSTRACTThe precise role played by the hippocampus in supporting cognitive functions such as episodic memory and future thinking is debated, but there is general agreement that it involves constructing representations comprised of numerous elements. Visual scenes have been deployed extensively in cognitive neuroscience because they are paradigmatic multi-element stimuli. However, questions remain about the specificity and nature of the hippocampal response to scenes. Here, we devised a paradigm in which we had participants search pairs of images for either colour or layout differences, thought to be associated with perceptual or spatial constructive processes respectively. Importantly, images depicted either naturalistic scenes or phase-scrambled versions of the same scenes, and were either simple or complex. Using this paradigm during functional MRI scanning, we addressed three questions: 1. Is the hippocampus recruited specifically during scene processing? 2. If the hippocampus is more active in response to scenes, does searching for colour or layout differences influence its activation? 3. Does the complexity of the scenes affect its response? We found that, compared to phase-scrambled versions of the scenes, the hippocampus was more responsive to scene stimuli. Moreover, a clear anatomical distinction was evident, with colour detection in scenes engaging the posterior hippocampus whereas layout detection in scenes recruited the anterior hippocampus. The complexity of the scenes did not influence hippocampal activity. These findings seem to align with perspectives that propose the hippocampus is especially attuned to scenes, and its involvement occurs irrespective of the cognitive process or the complexity of the scenes.