Memory for Natural Settings: Role of Diffuse and Focused Attention

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Abstract
Recall and recognition of various aspects of a real scene, a university corridor, were studied under three conditions. In the “low-attention” condition the subjects had to traverse the place in order to carry out aims attainable somewhere else; in the “medium-attention” condition instructions directed their attention to the place in a rather vague and unfocused manner; in the “high-attention” condition their attention was explicitly focused on all aspects of the corridor. An interaction of attention level with memory was investigated considering, according to schema theories, the distinction between expected, stable elements and unexpected, variable ones. It was predicted that memory of objects of furniture (variable elements) should be higher with medium than low, while memory of structural elements (stable elements) should be higher with medium than high attention. The results confirmed this hypothesis, suggesting that medium attention is well suited for investigating memory when the experimenter's aim is to induce attention to all aspects of the environment.

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