A Systematic Review of Virtual Reality Technology and Human Memory Augmentation

Abstract

Researchers have long been intrigued in memory augmentation through Virtual Reality (VR) applications. However, inconsistent findings have been reported in literature due to variety of methodologies, VR and memory types adopted in each study. This paper provides a systematic review of the literature in this domain by thoroughly mapping and meta-analysing previous research on VR and human memory augmentation to offer methodological guidance for more rigorous and reliable studies in the future. The review highlights a large proportion of explanatory, quantitative, and experimental research with various demographic samples, indicating the accumulation of rich empirical evidence in literature. Our review also brings to attention that the memory types, except for the spatial memory, have been less frequently and vaguely mentioned in literature, whereas the VR types have often been highlighted. Meta-analysis has revealed a medium effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.54) for the relationship between VR and human memory.