The role of overlap and end state in perceiving and remembering events

This work investigates how we organize complex, multiple and overlapping events. Two hypotheses have been proposed in investigating the cognitive principles that potentially constrain how humans construct event temporal relations. The end state bias hypothesis focuses on the end points of events. The overlap hypothesis focuses on whether events overlap or not in time. Participants viewed animations of fish swimming events at immediate versus delayed retention intervals, and judged temporal relations. Simulations manipulated the end states of events. The results consistently provided support for the overlap hypothesis, and the simulations suggested that there were vestiges of the end state in constructing event temporal relations