A-211 The Impact of Task Novelty on a Virtual Reality-Based Procedural Learning Task

Abstract

Abstract Objective: Psychologists have long used nonsensical information in the study of learning and memory (Ebbinghaus, 1885). Nonsensical information makes it difficult to rely on previous learning and thus increases task novelty (Quent et al., 2021). Little extant research has investigated the impact of task novelty in everyday activities, which are often overlearned. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of task novelty on a procedural learning and memory task in virtual reality. Method: Healthy young adults (N = 41; ages 18–25, M = 18.73, SD = 1.38) completed the Virtual Kitchen Protocol (VKP; Barnett, Parsons, & Childers, 2021), a virtual reality-based measure of learning and memory for meal preparation of both regular (e.g., cooking an egg) and nonsensical (e.g., placing a menu in a toaster) dishes. Results: Results of a Wilcoxon signed-rank test found that in immediate recall, participants demonstrated better recall for preparing regular dishes (M = 31.51, SD = 3.33) than nonsensical dishes (M = 26.68, SD = 4.75); z = 4.699. p < 0.001.; after a 20-minute delay, participants still had better recall for preparing regular dishes (M = 32.81, SD = 2.44) than the nonsensical ones (M = 27.32, SD = 4.38); z = 5.288, p < 0.001. Conclusions: Task novelty had a negative impact on recall for everyday procedural tasks in virtual reality. Overlearned behaviors may affect performance on measures of everyday activities, but the use of nonsensical analog tasks may provide a means of controlling for task familiarity.