A highly elaborative reminiscing virtual agent to enhance student memory of virtual world events

The use of “highly elaborative” reminiscing by mothers, involving open-ended questions and more detail about past events has been shown to produce children with greater accuracy and detail in their autobiographical memory recall of past events. This paradigm has not been extended to semantic learning, or to an adult population before. Thus, the present study used a virtual reminiscing agent to investigate the effect of elaborative and nonelaborative reminiscing on students’ semantic memory recall of a virtual event to investigate this reminiscing paradigm. A study involving ninety-eight undergraduate psychology students revealed that participants exposed to highly elaborative reminiscing free recalled significantly more correct information than low elaborative reminiscing (closed-ended questions and low detail), and no reminiscing. Second, open-ended questions were superior to closed-ended questions in free recall memory, as well as in number of memory errors. Lastly, the provision of high detail improved recall when combined with open-ended questions, but not when combined with closed-ended questions. These results indicate that an intelligent virtual agent with a highly elaborative reminiscing style may be a valuable learning companion by aiding (adult) students to reflect on and better remember episodic experiences provided in a virtual world.