“The more you explore, the less you remember”: unraveling the effects of scene clutter on learning and memory for targets

We are constantly exposed to visually rich, oftentimes cluttered, environments. Previous studies have demonstrated the negative effects of clutter on visual search behavior and various oculomotor metrics. However, little is known about the consequences of clutter on other cognitive processes, like learning and memory. In the present study, we explored the effects of scene clutter on gaze behavior during a learning task and whether these gaze patterns influenced memory performance in a later cued recall task. Using spatial density analysis, we found that a higher degree of scene clutter resulted in more dispersed gaze behavior during the learning task. Additionally, participants recalled target locations less precisely in cluttered than in uncluttered scenes during the recall task. These findings have important implications for theories linking exploratory viewing with memory performance as well as for making recommendations on how interior spaces could be better organized to facilitate daily living.