Schema-Based Influences On The Perception of, and Memory For, Real World Scenes.

da Silva, Mariana Matos. (2005) Schema-Based Influences On The Perception of, and Memory For, Real World Scenes. Doctoral thesis, University of Surrey (United Kingdom)..

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Abstract

Perception is a process by which attention and knowledge from long-term memory interact. This thesis explored how instantiation of action-schemata influence eye-movement behaviour and the development of representations during natural scene perception. Stereotypical knowledge about actions was found to be consistent across individuals, and four action-scenes were created and used in all subsequent experiments. In confirmation of previous research (Friedman, 1979; Goodman, 1980; Henderson, Weeks and Hollingworth, 1999), action-schemata were found to have an effect on eye-movement behaviour and memory for those scenes. At scene onset, visual attention was deployed in a manner to facilitate scene understanding and this depended on whether action and place scene information were correlated. Overall, schema-inconsistent objects were looked at more than schema-consistent objects, but only at later stages of scene viewing. This led to differences in memory performance for both types of objects. These results were reinforced in a change detection task, where schema-inconsistent objects produced earlier change detection performance suggesting a connection between attention and online memory representations. Furthermore, it was found that attention was critical in incorporating both the perceptual detail of objects and information that was not supported by the currently active schema. Finally, schematic effects in memory were observed when only a subset of schema-consistent objects were viewed, suggesting that the regularities shared by these objects were sufficient to guide perception. These effects were particularly emphasised when participants were cued for action but not for place, and it was suggested that this could be due to stronger action-object contingencies. The findings reported in this thesis suggest that action-schemata mediate dynamic scene perception by means of differential allocation of attention and selective encoding of specific information. During this process, attention and knowledge from long-term memory play distinct, yet equally important roles.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Divisions :	Theses
Authors :	da Silva, Mariana Matos.
Date :	2005
Additional Information :	Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Surrey (United Kingdom), 2005.
Depositing User :	EPrints Services
Date Deposited :	06 May 2020 13:07
Last Modified :	06 May 2020 13:11
URI:	http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/id/eprint/855930

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