Abstract
When viewers study a photograph of a scene, they often remember more of the scene than they actually saw. This “boundary extension” is found for the boundaries of the photograph but not for boundaries of objects within a photograph (e.g., a tray upon which a place setting is arranged). A set of experiments tested memory for boundaries of scenes where the boundary is a naturally occurring aperture within a scene, such as a door or a window. Participants viewed a series of 32 picture 16 of them had naturally occurring (intrinsic) apertures (e.g., French windows) through which another scene (e.g., a garden) could be seen. In the study phase, participated were instructed to memorize the scene to indicate if each scene was all indoor, all outdoor or a combination of indoor and outdoor (e.g., room with a garden seen through the window). In the test phase, participants were given four choices. For the scenes with internal apertures, the inner scene (seen through this aperture) was varied separately from the outer scene (the scene where this aperture was located). Prior research showed that participants were more likely to pick a scene where the outer scene was correct and the inner scene was extended. However, in that study participant were not given the choice to pick the target picture. In the current study, participants were given 4 test choices: target, extended inner scene only, extended outer scene only (inner scene correct), and a version in which both were extended. Participants still showed preference for the scene with only the inner scene extended, followed by the target scene, showing that participant were less likely to extend the boundaries of the overall scene but did tend to extend the boundaries of the inner scene, viewed through the intrinsic aperture.