Abstract
Context-dependency effects on memory exist, whereby people’s context influences their ability to accurately recall items from memory. This effect was not previously studied when considering virtual reality as an environmental context. We show that adverse effects on recall of memorized items exist when changing between virtual and real environments. The effect was not present when memorizing and recall were both done in VR; it appears to be caused by the change of environmental context. This previously unknown effect may impact how we use VR for memorization tasks, particularly when accurate recall of memorized information in a real environment is important. In a memory-recall experiment (n = 51) participants that underwent a context change involving VR after memorizing performed significantly worse on 24-h later item recall than those who did not change context (17% lower accuracy, p < 0.001). In particular memorizing in VR as opposed to a real environment lowers accuracy of recall in a real environment (24% lower, p = 0.001).
Highlights
It is possible that you have had to memorize words to meet an educational requirement
This study investigates the previously unexplored area of contextdependency effects on memory when changing between virtual reality and real-world environments
The outcomes of our experiment clearly show that significant and substantial adverse effects on memory recall accuracy exist when changing environments, compared to when not changing environments
Summary
It is possible that you have had to memorize words to meet an educational requirement. Sitting at home you memorize the given words until you are able to recall them well. Upon your return home, when sitting behind your desk again, somehow you can recall most of the “forgotten” words. This could be caused by a memory effect known as context-dependency, wherein your context influences the ability to recall items from your memory. All participants were asked to recall the words while being in either the same or the other context. A change in context negatively affected the ability to recall items memorized. This effect was later found to exist for other context changes . A good overview, in our opinion, is provided by Smith and Vela (2001)
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