Fig. 1: MEGA paradigm.
a Visual Stimuli. 34 Participants watched 65 custom-made movie clips, each featuring a distinct surprising event. Each surprising event included a specific object at a specific location (red square) at a specific time (orange square). The defining characteristic of these events was their unexpected appearance. The animations ranged from 8-15s. b Analysis rationale: To probe memory retrieval, gaze patterns were compared between the first and second viewings of the same movie. The example heatmap, based on one participant’s data for a single movie, illustrates this rationale. Top row: the average gaze location during 1st viewing (blue); Middle row: the same average gaze during the 2nd viewing (green). Bottom row: the difference between the gaze during 1st and 2nd viewings before the event appears on the screen. Participants were expected to gaze more often toward the location of the upcoming event, indicating their memory of the event. Heatmaps represent gaze locations of a single move, averaged over time. c Experimental design: 65 movie clips were presented twice in randomized order, with a consolidation interval of 2 h between viewings. Eye-tracking data was collected during both viewings. During the 2nd viewing, after each movie, participants reported whether they recognized the movie clip from the first session and rated the confidence of their response.
