How goals shape naturalistic memories: bias in gaze and narrative recall
- 1University of Freiburg
Abstract
Episodic memories are thought to represent information framed by our individual perception and goals, yet personal experiences are hard to evaluate externally. Due to novel methodological advances, we could now trace the development of such goal-shaped memories in a naturalistic experimental setting. We recorded eye-tracking while participants encoded episodic-like memories, and later recorded participants freely narrating their experiences. Naturalistic goal-states were induced by introducing a secret job, which promised to reward participants later for person-based or space-based information. Using computer-vision based semantic segmentation of visual scanning behaviour in movie scenes and data-driven coding of free recall performance, we show that these goals increasingly shift attention during memory encoding and systematically bias narration during retrieval to goal-relevant dimensions. Our findings highlight that we can use data-driven methodology to observe how naturally occurring or induced biases shape how we perceive and remember the world.
Related
- Post-Learning Reactivation of Memories for Naturalistic Continuous Experiences
- Naturalistic recall preserves temporal specificity despite cortical feature reorganization
- Regenerative Development Goals should shape the post-2030 sustainability agenda
- Beta bursts carry a graded signal of semantic updating during naturalistic narrative comprehension
- Goals shape human confidence
BibTeX
@misc{habenicht2026goals,
title = {{How goals shape naturalistic memories: bias in gaze and narrative recall}},
author = {H. Habenicht and M. Mueller and M. Schoenauer and N. M. Roueast},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.28.762515},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.28.762515v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - How goals shape naturalistic memories: bias in gaze and narrative recall
AU - H. Habenicht
AU - M. Mueller
AU - M. Schoenauer
AU - N. M. Roueast
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/28
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.28.762515
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.28.762515v1
AB - Episodic memories are thought to represent information framed by our individual perception and goals, yet personal experiences are hard to evaluate externally. Due to novel methodological advances, we could now trace the development of such goal-shaped memories in a naturalistic experimental setting. We recorded eye-tracking while participants encoded episodic-like memories, and later recorded participants freely narrating their experiences. Naturalistic goal-states were induced by introducing a secret job, which promised to reward participants later for person-based or space-based information. Using computer-vision based semantic segmentation of visual scanning behaviour in movie scenes and data-driven coding of free recall performance, we show that these goals increasingly shift attention during memory encoding and systematically bias narration during retrieval to goal-relevant dimensions. Our findings highlight that we can use data-driven methodology to observe how naturally occurring or induced biases shape how we perceive and remember the world.
ER -