Event segmentation and event boundary advantage: Role of attention and postencoding processing

Event boundary advantage (EBA) refers to better memory for information at an event boundary compared to other portions of an event. Event segmentation theory attributes this advantage to prediction error related enhancement of attention at event boundaries. But empirical support for this assertion is sparse and inconsistent. We investigate this proposition with the help of 3 experiments using a dual task paradigm where participants perform a probe detection task while viewing movie-clips. By varying the difficulty of the probe detection task and measuring the recall accuracy at boundary and nonboundary event intervals, we study how increase in attentional demand of the secondary task influences EBA (Experiment 1 and 2). Additionally, we vary the interval between encoding and retrieval to examine if consolidation plays a role in EBA (Experiment 3). The first experiment examines the presence of the EBA for a simple probe-detection task. In the second experiment, participants perform a go/no-task (high load) with varying probe locations. The third experiment investigates how introducing a short delay between encoding and recall influences EBA. An EBA is observed even in the presence of a simple probe detection task, which decreases for the go/no-go task. A trial-by-trial analysis shows greater odds of recall when the probe is detected correctly. Delayed recall increases the magnitude of EBA compared to immediate recall for both simple dot-detection task and a go/no-go task. Based on these results we suggest that EBA is mediated by both attention as well as other consolidatory mechanisms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).