Virtual experience helpful, but drawbacks

SEATTLE, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Experience may be the best teacher, but a U.S. study finds virtual experiences help with memories but had many think they could do more than they could.

Ann E. Schlosser of the University of Washington tested how well people used a camera after learning about its functions two different ways: either through an interactive virtual rendition or through text and static pictures.

She found that though virtual experiences improved people's memories of the camera's functions, it also increased false positives -- that is, more people believed it could do things that it couldn't do.

"Although object interactivity may improve memory of associations compared to static pictures and text, it may lead to the creation of vivid internally-generated recollections that pose as memories," Schlosser said.

In addition, though the virtual experience was better for retaining information, it didn't help test subjects recognize the actual items when presented in real life, according to the study published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

"The benefits of learning via virtual experience may come with costs: The ease of generating mental images may create later confusion regarding whether a retrieved mental image was perceived or imagined," said Schlosser.