Episodic Binding in Performance Tasks: Contextual Control and Consequences for Awareness
Bruce Milliken
McMaster University

Kahneman, Treisman and Gibbs (1992) introduced the idea that onset of a visual event cues the retrieval of corresponding object representations in memory. In turn, performance tasks often capture the ease with which the features of a perceptual event are integrated with the contents of retrieved object representations, which we refer to here as episodic binding effects. This framework has had a notable impact across several attention and performance literatures. In this talk I highlight two properties of episodic binding effects that have received little attention in prior research. In particular, the expression of episodic binding effects in performance is under contextual control, and episodic binding processes can have profound consequences for awareness of contingencies between consecutive events.