We use representations and expectations formed during life-long learning to support attentional allocation and perception. In comparison to traditional laboratory investigations, real-world memory formation is usually achieved without explicit instruction and on-the-fly as a by-product of natural interactions with our environment. Understanding this process and the quality of naturally formed representations is critical to understanding how memory is used to guide attention and perception. Utilizing immersive, navigable, and realistic virtual environments, we investigated incidentally generated memory representations by comparing them to memories for items which were explicitly memorized. Participants either searched for objects embedded in realistic indoor environments or explicitly memorized them for follow-up identity and location memory tests. We show for the first time that memory for the identity of naturalistic objects and their location in 3D space is higher after incidental encoding compared to explicit memorization, even though the subsequent memory tests came as a surprise to participants. Relating gaze behavior to memory performance revealed that encoding time was more predictive of subsequent memory when participants explicitly memorized an item, compared to incidentally encoding it. Our results suggest that the active nature of guiding attentional allocation during proactive behavior allows for behaviorally optimal formation and utilization of representations. This highlights the importance of investigating cognition under ecologically valid conditions and shows that understanding the most natural processes for encoding and maintaining information is critical for understanding adaptive behavior.

中文翻译：

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搜索优势：与自然虚拟环境中的显式编码相比，目标导向的注意力分配创造了更可靠的偶然身份和位置记忆。

我们使用在终身学习期间形成的表征和期望来支持注意力分配和感知。与传统的实验室研究相比，现实世界的记忆形成通常是在没有明确指导的情况下实现的，并且是与环境自然相互作用的副产品。理解这个过程和自然形成表征的质量对于理解记忆如何用于引导注意力和感知至关重要。利用沉浸式、可导航和逼真的虚拟环境，我们通过将它们与明确记忆的项目的记忆进行比较来研究偶然生成的记忆表示。参与者要么搜索嵌入在现实室内环境中的物体，要么明确记住它们以进行后续身份和位置记忆测试。我们首次表明，与显式记忆相比，偶然编码后对自然物体的身份及其在 3D 空间中的位置的记忆更高，尽管随后的记忆测试让参与者感到惊讶。将凝视行为与记忆表现联系起来表明，与偶然编码相比，当参与者明确记住一个项目时，编码时间更能预测随后的记忆。我们的结果表明，在主动行为期间引导注意力分配的主动性质允许行为上最佳的形成和表征的利用。