The mosaic of experience: how individual differences in attention and working memory shape event segmentation

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41235-026-00729-7

Episodic memories, although experienced as continuous, are structured into discrete events, a process supported by working memory (WM) and attentional control. Yet, the causal contributions of these mechanisms remain underspecified. This review synthesizes behavioral, cognitive, and neural findings from healthy aging and three cognitive profiles with known WM and attentional control impairments (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder) to clarify how these mechanisms shape event segmentation. Drawing on converging findings across these groups, we outline theoretically grounded expectations: aging may show preserved segmentation when semantic structure is firm but disruptions under interference and higher control demands; ADHD may exhibit coarser segmentation and reduced agreement due to attentional lapses and self-referential intrusions; dyslexia may show reduced fine-grained segmentation specifically for rapidly changing verbal events due to temporal-processing limits; and OCD may demonstrate schema-driven, idiosyncratic boundary placement under threat-relevant contexts. Integrating these findings, we propose a mechanism-centered framework in which segmentation arises from the interaction of WM constraints, attentional control dynamics, and schema/contextual modulation. This framework refines prediction-error-based accounts and generates testable hypotheses for future experimental work.