Individual differences in experiential diversity shape event segmentation granularity

Abstract

Parsing experience into meaningful events or units, known as event segmentation, may be critical for structuring episodic memory, planning, and navigating spatial and social environments. However, little is known about what factors shape inter-individual differences in event segmentation. Here, we show that individuals with greater variation in their daily social and spatial lives (experiential diversity) displayed more fine-grained event segmentation during a movie-viewing task. This relationship held after considering potential confounds, such as anxiety, loneliness, and socioeconomic factors, and was primarily driven by variation in social experiential diversity. Exploratory analyses revealed that the relationship between social experiential diversity and segmentation granularity was stronger in high-anxiety participants, suggesting heightened vigilance to fine-grained social-emotional cues during movie-viewing. These results support the view that event segmentation can occur proactively based on social and spatial environmental dynamics learned "in the wild" and provide a potential cognitive pathway through which isolation impacts cognitive health.

Keywords: Neuroscience; Social sciences.

Graphical abstract

Figure 1

The event segmentation task The event segmentation task involved the presentation of an 8-min movie: Alfred Hitchcock’s black-and-white television drama “Bang! You’re Dead”. The movie was shown above an on-screen button, which participants pressed whenever they judged one event (i.e., “a meaningful unit of time”) to end and another to begin.

Figure 2

The relationship between total experiential diversity and event segmentation granularity Each data point reflects an individual participant and there are 157 data points shown. The shaded area represents the 95% confidence interval on the best-fitting regression line.

Figure 3

The relationship between social and spatial experiential diversity subscales and event segmentation granularity Statistical comparisons between social and spatial conditions are reported above the plots (Steiger Z-test). Each data point reflects an individual participant and there are 157 data points shown. The shaded area represents the 95% confidence interval on the best-fitting regression line.

Figure 4

The relationship between (A) social and (B) spatial experiential diversity and event segmentation granularity as a function of anxiety A median split is used for visualization purposes, with 77 in the high anxiety group and 80 data points in the low anxiety group (157 data points in total). The shaded area represents the difference between the slopes.