Enhancing Organizational Memory Through Virtual Memoryscapes: Does It Work? (original) (raw)
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A virtual reality platform for memory evaluation: Assessing effects of spatial strategies
Behavior Research Methods
Human spatial memories are usually evaluated using computer screens instead of real arenas or landscapes where subjects could move voluntarily and use allocentric cues to guide their behavior. A possible approach to fill this gap is the adoption of virtual reality, which provides the opportunity to create spatial memory tasks closer to real-life experience. Here we present and evaluate a new software to create experiments using this technology. Specifically, we have developed a spatial memory task that is carried out in a computer-assisted virtual environment where participants walk around a virtual arena using a joystick. This spatial memory task provides an immersive environment where the spatial component is constantly present without the use of virtual reality goggles. The design is similar to that of tasks used for animal studies, allowing a direct comparison across species. We found that only participants who reported using spatial cues to guide their behavior showed significant learning and performed significantly better during a memory test. This tool allows evaluation of human spatial memory in an ecological environment and will be useful to develop a wide range of other tasks to assess spatial cognition.
Misplacing memories? An enactive approach to the virtual memory palace
Consciousness & Cognition, 2019
In this paper, we evaluate the pragmatic turn towards embodied, enactive thinking in cognitive science, in the context of recent empirical research on the memory palace technique. The memory palace is a powerful method for remembering yet it faces two problems. First, cognitive scientists are currently unable to clarify its efficacy. Second, the technique faces significant practical challenges to its users. Virtual reality devices are sometimes presented as a way to solve these practical challenges, but currently fall short of delivering on that promise. We address both issues in this paper. First, we argue that an embodied, enactive approach to memory can better help us understand the effectiveness of the memory palace. Second, we present design recommendations for a virtual memory palace. Our theoretical proposal and design recommendations contribute to solving both problems and provide reasons for preferring an embodied, enactive account over an information-processing treatment of the memory palace.
Journal of Cognitive Enhancement
The method of loci (MoL) is a well-known mnemonic technique in which visuospatial spatial environments are used to scaffold the memorization of non-spatial information. We developed a novel virtual reality-based implementation of the MoL in which participants used three unique virtual environments to serve as their "memory palaces." In each world, participants were presented with a sequence of 15 3D objects that appeared in front of their avatar for 20 s each. The experimental group (N = 30) was given the ability to click on each object to lock it in place, whereas the control group (N = 30) was not afforded this functionality. We found that despite matched engagement, exposure duration, and instructions emphasizing the efficacy of the mnemonic across groups, participants in the experimental group recalled 28% more objects. We also observed a strong relationship between spatial memory for objects and landmarks in the environment and verbal recall strength. These results provide evidence for spatially mediated processes underlying the effectiveness of the MoL and contribute to theoretical models of memory that emphasize spatial encoding as the primary currency of mnemonic function.
Walking Through Virtual Doors: A Study on the Effects of Virtual Location Changes on Memory
2021
The spaces we inhabit can shape and influence the way in which we learn or reinforce information. Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that allows us to alter and create designed environments with great freedom over the visual, audio, and narrative elements. This freedom would benefit from further guidelines that detail approaches and implementations to best achieve desired information delivery goals. In this paper we present findings of a study that applies location-based memory strategies to VR environments, with the aim to aid word list recall without the subjects being required to apply any memory strategy themselves. Our findings suggest that VR may interfere with the incidental processing of multiple rooms and potential aid to recall as demonstrated in real world studies [PTT∗16] [Smi82]. CCS Concepts • Human-centered computing → Virtual reality; • Applied computing → Interactive learning environments;
The Method of Loci (MOL) is an ancient mnemonic strategy used to enhance serial recall. Traditionally, the MOL is carried out by imagining navigating a familiar environment and "placing" the to-be-remembered items in specific locations. For retrieval, the mnemonist re-imagines walking through the environment, "looking" for those items in order. Here we test a novel MOL method, where participants use a briefly studied virtual environment as the basis for the MOL and applied the strategy to 10 lists of 11 unrelated words. When our virtual environments were used, the MOL was as effective, compared to an uninstructed control group, as the traditional MOL where highly familiar environments were used. Thus, at least for naïve participants, a highly detailed environment does not support substantially better memory for verbal serial lists.
2008
The current project is an initial attempt at validating the Virtual Reality Cognitive Performance Assessment Test (VRCPAT), a virtual environment-based measure of learning and memory. To examine convergent and discriminant validity, a multitrait-multimethod matrix was used in which we hypothesized that the VRCPAT's total learning and memory scores would correlate with other neuropsychological measures involving learning and memory but not with measures involving potential confounds (i.e., executive functions; attention; processing speed; and verbal fluency). Using a sequential hierarchical strategy, each stage of test development did not proceed until specified criteria were met. The 15-minute VRCPAT battery and a 1.5-hour in-person neuropsychological assessment were conducted with a sample of 30 healthy adults, between the ages of 21 and 36, that included equivalent distributions of men and women from ethnically diverse populations. Results supported both convergent and discriminant validity. That is, findings suggest that the VRCPAT measures a capacity that is (a) consistent with that assessed by traditional paper-and-pencil measures involving learning and memory and (b) inconsistent with that assessed by traditional paper-and-pencil measures assessing neurocognitive domains traditionally assumed to be other than learning and memory. We conclude that the VRCPAT is a valid test that provides a unique opportunity to reliably and efficiently study memory function within an ecologically valid environment.
Frontiers in psychology, 2018
Memory is one of the most important cognitive functions in a person's life as it is essential for recalling personal memories and performing many everyday tasks. Although a huge number of studies have been conducted in the field, only a few of them investigated memory in realistic situations, due to methodological issues. The various tools that have been developed using virtual environments (VEs) have gained popularity in cognitive psychology and neuropsychology because they enable to create naturalistic and controlled situations, and are thus particularly adapted to the study of episodic memory (EM), for which an ecological evaluation is of prime importance. EM is the conscious recollection of personal events combined with their phenomenological and spatiotemporal encoding contexts. Using an original paradigm in a VE, the objective of the present study was to characterize the construction of episodic memories. While the concept of working memory has become central in the unders...
Validity evaluation of a spatial memory task in virtual environments
2011
ABSTRACT. A broad range of neuropsychological tests and trainings are used to assess cognitive function during rehabilitation after brain injury. However, given the everyday problems that patients struggle with, questions of ecological validity arise. For example, abstract tasks have little meaning to patients and decrease motivation to practice skills frequently. This study proposes a spatial memory task with high ecological validity that can be integrated into any virtual environment.