Abstract
We typically experience the world from a first-person perspective (1PP) but can sometimes experience events from a third-person perspective (3PP) much as an observer might see us. Little is known about how visual perspective influences the formation of memories for events. We developed an immersive virtual reality paradigm to examine how visual perspective during encoding influences memories. Across two studies, participants explored immersive virtual environments from first-person and third-person avatar perspectives while wearing an Oculus Rift headset. Memory was tested immediately (Study One and Study Two) and following a one-week delay (Study Two). We assessed the accuracy of visual memory using cued recall questions and spatial memory by asking participants to draw maps of the layout of each environment (Study One and Study Two). Additional phenomenological ratings were included to assess visual perspective during remembering (Study Two). There were no differences in the accuracy of visual information across the two studies, but 3PP experiences were found to increase spatial memory accuracy due to their wider camera field of view when compared to 1PP experiences. Our results also demonstrate that 3PP experiences create 3PP memories, as reflected by an increase in subjective ratings of observer-like perspectives during remembering. In sum, visual perspective during memory formation influences the accuracy of spatial but not visual information, and the vantage point of memories during remembering.
Highlights
We typically experience the world from a first-person perspective (1PP) but can sometimes experience events from a third-person perspective (3PP) much as an observer might see us
After controlling for differences in the field of view (FOV) in Study Two, there were no significant differences in spatial memory accuracy in the first-person and third-person perspective conditions
Visual details central to the task were recalled better than peripheral details, and there was an overall reduction in memory accuracy following a delay. Consistent with this objective measurement of visual information, there were no differences in subjective ratings of vividness in the first-person and third-person perspective conditions. Together these findings suggest that memories formed from first-person and third-person conditions contain a similar degree of visual information, in contrast with memories formed from first-person perspectives and later retrieved from a third-person perspective[27]
Summary
We typically experience the world from a first-person perspective (1PP) but can sometimes experience events from a third-person perspective (3PP) much as an observer might see us. Across two studies, we used immersive virtual reality to manipulate first-person and third-person avatar perspectives to investigate the influence of 3PP experiences on the formation of memories for events. Gorisse and colleagues[14] manipulated first-person and third-person avatar perspectives in a virtual environment and asked participants to deflect a series of projectiles and jump between platforms to activate terminals without falling. They found that third-person avatar perspectives led to faster response times, which they attributed to the improved spatial awareness of information in the periphery of the scene. Changes in spatial awareness due to avatar perspective could influence the types of details that people later recall, by increasing memory for peripheral information and/or the spatial layout of the overall scene
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