Description

We investigated the impact of an increased level of immersion on the effectiveness of the method of loci (also memory palace). This is an old memorization strategy which relies on the mental association between the learning content and spatial cues in an environment like an apartment (memory palace). An experiment was conducted in which the participants were assigned to one of two groups. Subjects were instructed to use the method of loci to memorize and recall five lists of words. These lists consisted of eleven words each. The first group was told to use a virtual environment, presented on a laptop, as a template for their memory palace. The second group received an immersive head-mounted-display to explore the memory palace in virtual reality (VR). It was hypothesized and partially shown, that the VR group outperforms the laptop group in terms of accuracy and actual use of the instructed method.

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Aug 10th, 12:00 AM

An Immersive Memory Palace: Supporting the Method of Loci with Virtual Reality

We investigated the impact of an increased level of immersion on the effectiveness of the method of loci (also memory palace). This is an old memorization strategy which relies on the mental association between the learning content and spatial cues in an environment like an apartment (memory palace). An experiment was conducted in which the participants were assigned to one of two groups. Subjects were instructed to use the method of loci to memorize and recall five lists of words. These lists consisted of eleven words each. The first group was told to use a virtual environment, presented on a laptop, as a template for their memory palace. The second group received an immersive head-mounted-display to explore the memory palace in virtual reality (VR). It was hypothesized and partially shown, that the VR group outperforms the laptop group in terms of accuracy and actual use of the instructed method.