The project consisted of three interdependent work packages (WPs) to address the above-mentioned research questions and provide empirical evidence of the role of visual perspective in modulating both the objective memory performance and the subjective perception of memory functioning.
The general aim of WP1 was to investigate the role of visual perspective in modulating the objective memory in both young participants and older adults. To reach this aim, we carried out two experimental studies to evaluate the differences in memory performance between events encoded in first- vs. third-person perspective (1PP vs. 3PP) in both young participants and older ones with a Virtual Reality (VR)-based episodic memory platform. Additionally, we also investigated the construct validity of the VR-based episodic memory platform by evaluating the correlations between memory indices obtained from this procedure and scores from traditional episodic memory tasks. As predicted, results indicated that the encoding of events in 1PP promoted a better memory recall, as compared to events encoded in 3PP for young adults. Older adults did not benefit from the first-person advantage. Moreover, findings indicated the feasibility of the procedure: the performance on the VR-based episodic memory was positively correlated with the performance the traditional episodic memory tests, thus supporting its use in studies with patients presenting cognitive impairments. The general aim of WP3 was to investigate the role of visual perspective in modulating the subjective perception of memory functioning in two clinical populations: participants suffering from subjective memory complaints and participants with mild cognitive impairments. We evaluated differences in their ability to correctly predict and estimate their memory performance (i.e. metacognitive abilities) before and after the administration of the VR-based episodic assessment in first- vs. third-person perspective (1PP vs. 3PP). As predicted, results showed that participants were more accurate in estimating their memory performance after exposed to the 3PP condition.
Globally, findings from healthy and clinical populations carried out during the entire period of the project demonstrated the value of perspective-switching as a technique to modulate both the objective memory performance and the subjective perception of memory functioning, that are relevant to the goals of the project.
From a technological point of view, the full set of technologies developed by the VIRTUALSYNC project (see Figure 1) includes:
- the final release of the “embodied machine”, namely a VR-based platform able to sustain the switching from the first-person to a third-person perspective during a memory task in simulated real-life settings, to be used in laboratory experiments with both healthy and clinical population;
- the final release of the online version of the “embodied machine” to be used in remote experiments.
Finally, the dissemination activities for VIRTUALSYNC Project (WP4) included different channels and achieved several results:
1) Scientific community: Project results have been presented in international conferences and several workshops. Moreover, an international conference was successfully organized to actively communicate the use of VR for neuroscience research and clinical practice, relevant topics for the VIRTUALSYNC Project. We plan to disseminate findings via publications in open access top-tier journals & conference presentations. These activities will be promoted in the project website and trough the social media account.
2) Non-scientific community: The project website (
https://myspacelab.ch/VirtualSync/(opens in new window)) has been successfully set-up to share information and news about project’ activities. In addition, to make project activities more accessible/closer to the target community – older adults and patients with cognitive impairments, we have also organized open days at the host institution with demos showing the role of VR technologies for the cognitive assessment of memory.
