Abstract
People remember seeing beyond the boundaries of a view (boundary extension; BE). One explanation (Multisource Model; Intraub, 2011) is that scene representation is not solely visual, but also includes multiple top-down sources of input (e.g., amodal perception, layout extrapolation). At test, people misattribute to vision what was originally acquired through top-down sources (i.e., a source monitoring error) resulting in BE. To assess this hypothesis we drew on the developmental observation that young children are more susceptible to source monitoring errors amongst similar sources than are adults (Lindsay, 2008). Would preschoolers therefore remember seeing more extra-stimulus area after viewing a photo-scene than would adults? In Experiment 1 preschoolers’ (N= 15; Mean age = 4.6) and adults’ (N= 24; Mean age = 18.7) drawings of a just-studied photograph yielded BE. Background area was increased, reducing the size of the main object by 16% (children) and 11% (adults); no difference. However, in Experiment 2 an immediate forced-choice task revealed a clear difference. On each of 40 trials, participants studied a close-up or wider-angle view (15 s) which was immediately replaced with both views (close-up and wider-angle; one identical to the stimulus). Closer-wider test pairs differed by 15% or 30% zoom. If BE occurs, we should observe error asymmetry: more errors on close-stimulus trials (selecting the wider view) than wider-stimulus trials (selecting the closer-view). Children’s memory reflected BE for 15% and 30% test pairs; adults only for 15% pairs (minimal errors occurred at 30%). A significant interaction (stimulus view x pair similarity) in each group showed that children’s strongest BE (close-stimulus errors > wider-stimulus errors) was at 30% zoom [F (1,14)=7.26, p<.017], whereas for adults it was at 15% zoom [F (1,23)= 13.00, p<.001]. Preschoolers made the same BE error as adults, but misattributed a greater swath of surrounding space to vision.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2012