Scene memory is prone to systematic distortions potentially arising from experience with the external world. Boundary transformation, a well-known memory distortion effect along the near-far axis of the three-dimensional space, represents the observer's erroneous recall of scenes’ viewing distance. Researchers argued that normalization to the prototypical viewpoint with the high-probability viewing distance influenced this phenomenon. Herein, we hypothesized that the prototypical viewpoint also exists in the vertical angle of view (AOV) dimension and could cause memory distortion along scenes’ vertical axis. Human subjects of both sexes were recruited to test this hypothesis, and two behavioral experiments were conducted, revealing a systematic memory distortion in the vertical AOV in both the forced choice (n = 79) and free adjustment (n = 30) tasks. Furthermore, the regression analysis implied that the complexity information asymmetry in scenes’ vertical axis and the independent subjective AOV ratings from a large set of online participants (n = 1,208) could jointly predict AOV biases. Furthermore, in a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment (n = 24), we demonstrated the involvement of areas in the ventral visual pathway (V3/V4, PPA, and OPA) in AOV bias judgment. Additionally, in a magnetoencephalography experiment (n = 20), we could significantly decode the subjects’ AOV bias judgments ~140 ms after scene onset and the low-level visual complexity information around the similar temporal interval. These findings suggest that AOV bias is driven by the normalization process and associated with the neural activities in the early stage of scene processing.

场景记忆很容易因外部世界的经验而产生系统性的扭曲。边界变换是一种众所周知的沿三维空间近远轴的记忆失真效应，代表观察者对场景观看距离的错误回忆。研究人员认为，高概率观看距离对原型视点的标准化影响了这种现象。在这里，我们假设原型视点也存在于垂直视角（AOV）维度中，并且可能导致沿场景垂直轴的记忆失真。招募了男女受试者来测试这一假设，并进行了两项行为实验，揭示了在强制选择（n = 79）和自由调整（n = 30）任务中垂直AOV的系统性记忆扭曲。此外，回归分析表明，场景纵轴上的复杂性信息不对称性和来自大量在线参与者（n = 1,208）的独立主观 AOV 评分可以共同预测 AOV 偏差。此外，在功能性磁共振成像实验（n = 24）中，我们证明了腹侧视觉通路区域（V3/V4、PPA 和 OPA）参与 AOV 偏差判断。此外，在脑磁图实验（n = 20）中，我们可以显着解码场景开始后约 140 毫秒受试者的 AOV 偏差判断以及相似时间间隔周围的低水平视觉复杂性信息。这些发现表明，AOV 偏差是由标准化过程驱动的，并与场景处理早期阶段的神经活动相关。