Long-term memory
Can a shared virtual memory palace rival the method of loci?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Bank staff who used their own imagined places to memorize a contract recalled more at first, but a week later they had forgotten enough that people who studied in a shared virtual-reality office did just as well.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — Two randomized groups (traditional method of loci vs VR headset memoryscape) x two recall sessions (immediately and 1 week later); mixed ANOVA with age and gender as covariates
- N
- N=82 · 82 bank employees, 41 per group; each tested twice with the same 17-item recall questionnaire
- Population
- Customer-support and sales staff from a large Italian banking group (mean age about 44.5, 34% women)
- Outcome
- Recall score for words and descriptions from a new insurance contract (17 items scored 0-2), immediately after study and one week later
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Key findings
Immediately after studying, the method-of-loci group scored higher (about 12.2 versus 9.6 points). A week later the method-of-loci group had dropped to about 8.3 while the VR group stayed around 9.6, so the groups no longer differed. The key group-by-time interaction was significant, meaning forgetting was greater with the traditional method, but effect sizes were small. Older participants tended to recall less, and gender made no difference.
Methodology
Eighty-two employees of a large bank were randomly split into two groups and asked to memorize words and descriptions from a new insurance contract. One group used the traditional method of loci, mentally placing items in a familiar place such as their own home. The other wore a VR headset showing a 360-degree recording of an office-like environment with five rooms, where each item was attached to an object they could click on. Both groups answered the same 17-item recall questionnaire right after studying and again one week later without further review.
Limitations
The VR group did not outperform the traditional method at either time point; they were simply equivalent after a week, and the authors' claim that VR would win over longer periods is an untested extrapolation. The conditions differed in more than the type of 'palace': the VR group had an extra exploration session, a different presentation format and the novelty of a headset, any of which could affect memory. Overall recall was low, the paper's stated maximum score is inconsistent (34 in the methods, 37 in the results), cybersickness was not measured, and the sample came from a single bank.
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