Out-of-body memory encoding causes third-person perspective at recall
L. Bergouignan, L. Nyberg, H. Ehrsson
Journal of Cognitive Psychology September 30, 2021 DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2021.1958823 (opens in new tab) via Semantic Scholar
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractEncoding an event during an out-of-body illusion increases the likelihood that it will later be recalled from a third-person perspective. Participants experienced a social interaction under an out-of-body illusion, viewing the event and their own body from an external perspective. In recall sessions approximately one week later, events encoded in the out-of-body condition were significantly less likely to be recalled from a first-person perspective compared to a control condition. The finding suggests that the perspective adopted at encoding, not only reconstructive processes at recall, contributes to whether a memory is recalled from a third-person perspective.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Intervention | out-of-body illusion |
| Duration | Encoding session with recall approximately 1 week later |
| Keywords | Psychology |
| Key finding | Events encoded during an out-of-body illusion were recalled from a first-person perspective significantly less often than events encoded in an in-body control condition, indicating that third-person perspective in memory can originate from the encoding experience. |
Abstract
ABSTRACT Sigmund Freud famously noted some memories are recalled with a perspective of “an observer from outside the scene”. According to Freud—and most memory researchers today—the third-person perspective occurs due to reconstructive processes at recall. An alternative possibility is that the third-person perspective have been adopted when the actual event is experienced and later recalled in its original form. Here we test this hypothesis using a perceptual out-of-body illusion during the encoding of real events. Participants took part in a social interaction while experiencing an out-of-body illusion where they viewed the event and their own body from a third-person perspective. In recall sessions ∼1 week later, events encoded in the out-of-body compared to the in-body control condition were significantly less recalled from a first-person perspective. An out-of-body experience leads to more third-person perspective during recollection.