Behavioral and Eye-Tracking Evidence for Disrupted Event Segmentation during Continuous Memory Encoding Due to Short Video Watching

Abstract

The proliferation of short-video platforms prompts critical investigation of their effects on human cognitive functions. We hypothesized that the frequent, user-driven content shifts inherent to short-video watching impair event segmentation--a cognitive process critical for organizing continuous experience into discrete, episodic memory. To investigate this hypothesis, we combined behavioral memory tasks, eye-tracking, and self-report questionnaires. Study 1 (N=113) revealed that exposure to randomly selected short videos impaired subsequent memory for continuous movies. This impairment was not observed following exposure to personalized short videos, nor was it present in trial-based static image encoding tasks (Study2, N=60), suggesting a selective disruption of continuous memory encoding. Intersubject correlation (ISC) analysis of eye movements revealed decreased synchronization at event boundaries during movie watching after exposure to random short videos. Furthermore, the Hidden Markov Model (HMM) analysis indicated that this exposure led to more fragmented event segmentation during continuous memory encoding. In contrast, while pupil size and gaze moving speed were sensitive to event boundaries, these metrics were not modulated by prior short video watching, indicating the disruption is specific to the segmentation process itself and not to lower-level boundary detection. Collectively, these findings demonstrate a negative impact of certain short video watching habits on event segmentation and subsequent memory, underscoring the powerful role of platform algorithms in shaping human cognition.