Abstract
Attitudes and motivations have been shown to affect the processing of visual input, indicating that observers may see a given situation each literally in a different way. Yet, in real-life, processing information in an unbiased manner is considered to be of high adaptive value. Attitudinal and motivational effects were found for attention, characterization, categorization, and memory. On the other hand, for dynamic real-life events, visual processing has been found to be highly synchronous among viewers. Thus, while in a seminal study fandom as a particularly strong case of attitudes did bias judgments of a sports event, it left the question open whether attitudes do bias prior processing stages. Here, we investigated influences of fandom during the live TV broadcasting of the 2013 UEFA-Champions-League Final regarding attention, event segmentation, immediate and delayed cued recall, as well as affect, memory confidence, and retrospective judgments. Even though we replicated biased retrospective judgments, we found that eye-movements, event segmentation, and cued recall were largely similar across both groups of fans. Our findings demonstrate that, while highly involving sports events are interpreted in a fan dependent way, at initial stages they are processed in an unbiased manner.
Highlights
In a seminal study, it was shown that fandom influenced retrospective judgments about an American football match[1]
Perception, memory, and retrospective judgments of real football fans while they watched the live TV broadcasting of the 2013 UEFA Champions League Final
FC Bayern München (FCB) scored the winning goal (1:2) with one minute left within normal time
Summary
Judgments Not Perception received: 07 June 2016 accepted: 19 January 2017 Published: 24 February 2017. Covering different processing steps of event perception, we measured affective states before, during (i.e. in the half-time break) and after the game, eye-movements and segmentation behavior during the game, performance and confidence in a cued recall test immediately and ten to twelve days after the game, as well as summative retrospective judgments ten to twelve days after the game. Our results show that fandom biases subjective judgments (such as recollection about the relative contribution of the teams and confidence in the cued recall test) but not basic perceptual and cognitive processes (such as eye-movements, event segmentation, and performance in the recall test). More research on the role of top-down processes is necessary to specify the effect of fandom on further measures associated with online processes when watching highly dynamic events In this light, we expect our experimental approach to be a starting point for more sophisticated theoretical models of the influence of attitudes on perceptual and cognitive processes. We anticipate that attitudes bias the former but not the latter
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