Causality and agency shape memory for a real-life dynamic social experience
Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: While time flows uniformly, many factors can influence how experiences become organized in memory. The current study examined how causality and agency impact the temporal structure of memory for a virtual escape room game played with friends. We found that after controlling for veridical temporal distance, causally-related events were remembered as closer in time than unrelated events. This effect grew stronger after a consolidation period, with causally-connected memories showing greater temporal integration than memories that merely shared contextual overlap. Notably, within causally-related events, temporal memory was superior for events where game clues were found than when they were used to resolve ambiguity. We also demonstrated that participants who made greater in-game contributions to puzzle-solving showed better temporal memory compared to participants who contributed less. High contributors also showed increased temporal integration between contextually-related events in particular. Together, these findings highlight the role of causal connections in driving memory integration and extend prior work on agency and memory to real-world experiences.
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4415984817