Virtual Reality Creates False Memories 193
moon_monkey writes "There's an interesting post on NewScientistTech's blog about virtual reality inducing false memories during a recent experiment (pdf). Ann Schlosser at the University of Washington tested students' ability to learn how to use a real digital camera by operating a virtual one. Although those students who used the virtual camera found it easier to remember how the camera worked, they also experienced more 'false memories'. As the post points out, could this be a serious problem for VR going forward?"
Quaid, get your ass to MARS! (Score:3, Informative)
Did these guys miss the Matrix?
Even in the movie Total Recall this was beaten to death. And in Do Androids Dream of Elctric Sheep.
So nothing really new here to see, an idea that is more than 30 years old?
Anyway, Arnold beat these researchers to it.
Puto
Re:I'm confused (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Informative)
But that's not a new problem. It's long been known that eyewitness testimony is highly unreliable, owing to the brains ability to "fill in" details of events with extra information. The classic example is of course the intro Psych course where an unknown assailant kills someone before the whole class, then runs from the room. Ask everyone in the room to describe the assailant and what occurred and you're liable to get as many different stories as there are people. The brain has a way of smoothing over memories and adding in extra bits of information it correlates with experiences to help aid in recall, but this of course leads to degradation of the memory's "truth." THis result should really not come as much of a shock.
Re:Duh (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'm confused (Score:1, Informative)
They asked the pedestrians something like "Are you aware that Senator so-and-so is in there right now being questioned on corruption/fraud charges, etc."
Of course, Senator so-and-so was fictional, but a lot of people agreed what a scumbag he was.
While this was more of a display of ignorance than fasle memories, one woman said, "I feel awful because I voted for him."