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[Originally posted in February, 2007]
When you look out the window and then look away, how do you remember what you saw? Do you hold a picture of the window in your head, frame and all? What about a photo? Do you remember the physical photo, or do you imagine the real scene it represents? If you remember the scene, and not the photo, then how do you form the boundaries of the scene? Does your memory end precisely where the photo does?
Here's a little test to see how accurate your short-term memory of a photo is. When you play the movie below, you'll have a second to get ready, then a photo will flash for just a half-second. It will be replaced by a random pattern for two seconds, and then the photo will reappear. It might be the same as the original, or it might have been cropped or enlarged slightly. Your job is to say if the area depicted in the second photo is the same, larger, or smaller than the original.
Click to play movie (QuickTime Required)
What do you think? Let's collect the answers in a poll (don't repeat the movie until you've responded):
Even playing the movie repeatedly it might be difficult to tell, so I'll display both photos side-by-side at the end of the post. What we're exploring here is a phenomenon that's been investigated for several years by Helene Intraub and her colleagues:
It's called boundary extension, and it has been robustly found in a variety of circumstances -- even in blind and deaf people. Intraub believes the phenomenon is related to the way we construct memories of scenes. Rather than remembering scenes on a pixel-by-pixel basis, we remember just enough information to reconstruct that scene later. Since items in a picture may extend beyond its border, our memory, too, usually extends beyond the boundaries of a picture. If we see the same picture later on, we usually believe it has been cropped. Did I crop the picture in the movie I showed you? I'll let you know at the end of the post.
Even when we see a picture for a very short period of time, and even when the picture is removed from vision for just two seconds, boundary extension is still observed. In a new experiment, Intraub's team asked viewers to focus just on the center of the photo (and tracked their eye movements to make sure they did). Even in this case, significant boundary extension occurred -- viewers believed the picture they saw was 50 percent bigger in area than it actually was. When allowed to move the borders of an image to reconstruct the view they thought they had seen, each edge was extended by around 20 percent.
But perhaps the boundary was only extended because viewers weren't allowed to look at it. To explore this possibility, Intraub's team designed a second experiment. 250 milliseconds after the photo was displayed, an arrow appeared, directing viewers towards an object on the left or right side of the picture. Before viewers could move their eyes all the way to the object, the photo disappeared. Again, they were allowed to reconstruct the boundaries of the picture. Here are the results:
There was significant boundary extension on three of the four borders of the picture: the top and bottom, but also the side viewers were cued to look at. The only side where no extension occurred was the side where they didn't look!
Boundary extension occurred precisely where viewers were looking. Thus, the researchers argue, it's not due to inadequate information about boundaries, but an active process whereby our memory actively extends beyond the boundaries of a scene. In a third experiment, viewers were sometimes cued to look one direction or the other, and sometimes cued to remain focused on the center of the photo. When focus remained on the center, there was no significant boundary extension to either side of the picture, but the top and bottom boundaries were still extended.
So boundary extension does not occur when we're actively "not looking" in a particular direction, but it does occur when we're looking in a particular direction. This again supports the notion that boundary extension is an active process of the mind, and that our memories are actively constructed, rather than mere passive reflections of reality. In other words, you make your own memories; they aren't made for you.
So what about the photos I showed you in the movie above? The second photo was zoomed out 5 percent wider on each side, for a total of 21 percent greater area depicted than the first photo:
So even if you thought that the two photos were the same, you were still showing boundary extension (and, of course, if you said the second photo was cropped, you were clearly extending the boundary).
Intraub, H., Hoffman, J.E., Wetherhold, J., & Stoehs, S. (2006). More than meets the eye: The effect of planned fixations on scene representation Perception & Psychophysics, 68 (5), 759-769
Brain & Behavior
Comments
Interesting study. I was able to tell that the second photo was zoomed out, but not because of the boundaries (at least, not consciously). What tipped me off was that the cute little girl appeared noticeably smaller in the second photo, thus I reasoned that it was zoomed out. Had it been a photo of just the landscape, I'm not sure I would have been able to tell the difference.
Posted by: Laura | June 15, 2009 7:09 PM
Same here - so if you could tell the second photo was zoomed out, does that mean you don't do boundary extension?
Posted by: Jen G | June 15, 2009 8:54 PM
I also noticed that the girl appeared smaller, but because of the short amount of time, I incorrectly thought that the actual size of the photo was smaller and that it had been cropped. I don't think it had to do with boundary extension in this case.
Posted by: Lisa | June 15, 2009 9:18 PM
I think this is interesting especially after recently watching a special on self image. In the show they tested a group of individuals on how well they knew their own body shape. The test involved taking pictures of individuals, then showing each person the picture and telling them that the picture may be shrunk, enlarged, or the same size. They then had each subject resize the image to what they believed they acually look like. In almost ever case the subject over shot their own body size by at least 10%, some as much as 20%. The test was supposed to show how we preceive ourselves larger than we actually are, but now I am curious if Boundary Extension may play a part as well.
Posted by: Andrew | June 16, 2009 10:35 AM
The video is highly flawed and any results are meaningless, at least if what happened to me is happening on other PC's. Each time I clicked on the movie is started with a still image, sort of the image you often see on a youtube video before pressing play - then it moved to what I later realized is supposed to be the "first image" but which I actually perceived to be the second image. Then it ended with the first image again, but which again I now realize is supposed to be the second image. In short on my PC it played as what I perceived to be 1-2-1 when it was evidently suppose to be playing as just 1-2, therefore I was basing my decision on the wrong picture order.
Of course it's possible I am nuts :-).
The test itself was easy for me because I immediately knew to establish a boundary point because of the clues that had been given ahead of time. Otherwise I am sure I would not have had a clue.
Posted by: David | June 17, 2009 5:55 PM
I unknowingly tricked myself into believing that I could see the girl's elbow in the first picture, which definitely threw me off.
Posted by: MTGAP | June 20, 2009 8:47 PM
I got it right. I said that the second picture was zoomed out. However, I know I have a visual processing disorder, with visual memory issues. Anecdotal, I know, but let me go back to the idea that this phenomena is due to an active process and not a processing deficiency. Could I have gotten it right because I did not go through this process?
It would be really interesting to see if dyslexics (and other people with visual learning disabilities) or people with visual processing skills that are abnormally good, like people with aspergers differ from the norm in visual boundary extension.
Posted by: Christina Boardman | June 21, 2009 1:32 AM
I noticed the space between the girl's ear and the right edge of the photo just before it disappeared, so the second time I saw it the "gap" space was noticeably larger.
Posted by: Freiddie | June 21, 2009 7:10 PM
I second the first comment.
Posted by: Queenlyzard | June 28, 2009 3:16 AM