Turns around periodic spatial boundaries facilitate increasing event segmentation over time

Ross, Tyler Wayne; Slater, Benjamin; Easton, Alexander

Abstract

Event segmentation is a neurocognitive process bridging perception and episodic memory. To our knowledge, almost all segmentation work is framed towards humans, yet evolutionarily conserved mechanisms in event cognition exist across species. Here, we addressed segmentation in a way that is applicable to humans and non-human animals, inspired by research in rats; specifically, the fragmentation of grid-cell spatial representations following the insertion of boundaries into an environment (forming a corridor maze). Participants indicated when they felt a meaningful unit of activity ended and another began, while watching an agent traverse from a first-person perspective. A virtual corridor maze (experiment 1) and two other mazes were used (experiment 2), with participants viewing/segmenting the same stimuli twice. We found that people segmented more during turns relative to corridors, with elevated segmentation occurring in discrete moments around turns. Interestingly, we also found that boundaries of the corridor maze facilitated an increase in segmentation within and across viewings. These results suggest that segmentation can be driven by recognized repeating activity that can become more meaningful over time, highlighting an important link between event segmentation and pattern separation that is relevant to many species in their formation of episodic-(like) memory.

Citation

Ross, T. W., Slater, B., & Easton, A. (2024). Turns around periodic spatial boundaries facilitate increasing event segmentation over time. Royal Society Open Science, 11(11), Article 240835. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.240835

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 18, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Nov 20, 2024
• Publication Date: 2024-11
• Deposit Date: Nov 26, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 26, 2024
• Journal: Royal Society Open Science
• Electronic ISSN: 2054-5703
• Publisher: The Royal Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 11
• Article Number: 240835
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.240835
• Keywords: event segmentation, episodic memory, episodic-like memory, spatial boundaries, pattern separation
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3105000