ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B

Acta Psychologica Sinica ›› 2025, Vol. 57 ›› Issue (7): 1187-1200.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2025.1187

• Reports of Empirical Studies • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Finite boundary extension of event scene memory: An example of a flight scene

YAN Bihua(), YANG Jingyi, LU Kailang   

  1. Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710062, China
  • Received:2024-07-30 Accepted:2025-01-20 Published:2025-07-25 Online:2025-04-24
  • Contact: YAN Bihua, E-mail: yanbihua@snnu.edu.cn

Abstract:

The memory errors at the scene boundaries are called boundary transformation, which is represented by boundary extension and boundary contraction. In this study, the boundary transformation of non-accident and accident flight scenes was compared using the paradigm of rapid serial visual presentation, and the effects of scene object distribution, scene viewpoint, and scene perceptual distance on the level of boundary transformation were also examined. The findings are as follows. (1) The flight scene memories are more likely to present boundary extension. (2) The boundary extension level of the non-accident flight scenes with decentralized distribution was higher than that of the centralized distribution condition, and the boundary extension level of the non-accident flight scenes with an overlooking viewpoint was higher than that of a horizontal viewpoint. (3) The aircraft distribution characteristics and viewpoints did not affect the boundary extension level of the flight accident scenes. (4) Reducing the perceived distance by adding positive extremal edges significantly increased the boundary extension of the non-accident flight scenes, and increasing the perceived distance by adding negative extremal edges significantly reduced the boundary extension of the flight accident scenes. In conclusion, boundary extension is more likely to occur in scene memory with the airplane as the primary object, which is called the visual saliency effect. The accident scene will activate the emotional attention mode due to its salient emotional scene gist so that its boundary extension is limited.

Key words: scene memory, boundary extension, boundary contraction, boundary transformation, flight accident scene