# An exploration of the influence of animal and object categories on recall of item location following an incidental learning task

## TL;DR

This study found that people remember where objects were better than where animals were, possibly due to differences in attention during learning.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel approach to understanding how attention during incidental learning affects location memory for different categories.

## Key findings

- Location memory for objects was more accurate than for animals.
- Differences in object-based attention during encoding may influence location memory at recall.

## Abstract

The current study explores the role of attention in location memory for animals and objects. Participants completed an incidental learning task where they rated animals and objects with regard to either their ease of collection to win a scavenger hunt (Experiments 1a and b) or their distance from the centre of the computer screen (Experiment 2). The images of animals and objects were pseudo-randomly positioned on the screen in both experiments. After completing the incidental learning task (and a reverse counting distractor task), participants were then given a surprise location memory recall task. In the location memory recall task, items were shown in the centre of the screen and participants used the mouse to indicate the position the item had been shown during the incidental encoding task. The results of both experiments show that location memory for objects was more accurate than for animals. While we cannot definitively identify the mechanism responsible for the difference in the location memory of objects and animals, we propose that differences in the influence of object-based attention at encoding affect location memory when tested at recall.