Experiences in virtual reality entail different processes of retrieval as opposed to conventional laboratory settings: A study on human memory

Abstract

Recently, it has been claimed that real-life, autobiographical events are processed differently compared to conventional laboratory events. Virtual reality might bridge the gap between real life and laboratory experiences and increase the ecological validity of psychological research. There is broad consensus that self-referential processing is essential for the formation of autobiographical memory. However, it is unclear whether autobiographical experiences can be created with commonly used paradigms, or if self-referentiality is unique to (virtual) reality. We thus set up an experiment in which participants explored a virtual Viking Village either in virtual reality or as a conventional first-person experience on a screen. As hypothesized, virtual reality experiences are vividly retrieved via recollection-based mnemonic processes, which are typical for autobiographical memory. In comparison, conventional screen experiences rather leave a feeling of familiarity. The encoding mechanism in virtual reality might closely resemble real-life mnemonic processing, making VR an ideal tool to study real-life cognition under controlled laboratory conditions.