When buying a new camera, you could watch a test-run in an interactive, computer-generated virtual world.

Web sites that offer object interactivity may increase vivid mental images compared to those with simple static pictures and text, but these web virtual experiences can transplant into your brain artificial recollections which - after that - the brain regards as memories, named by psychologists as false positives.

A new study proved that virtual experiences may enhance true memories, but also lead most people to create a fake better image about a product (like a digital camera). "Although learning through interactive experiences with a product is vivid and can enhance knowledge, it can create an illusory sense of competence," said Ann Schlosser, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Washington Business School.
173 subjects were tested how they could use a camera after studying its limits by exploring it through an interactive simulation or as described in brochures (text and photos).

Virtual experiences were proven to have two aspects: they stimulate people in retaining information, but often make them attribute the products some features and functions that don't exist. At the object-interactive site, subjects could roll the cursor over it and click on its image to produce changes and gather additional information about it. The non-interactive site had the same information.

At the end of the experiment, the subjects were asked whether certain digital camera attributes were present or absent on the camera. A higher percentage of false positives were showed by those who visited the object-interactive. "False positives seem to occur because people determine whether a feature is present by retrieving and searching a mental image for it," she said.

"Because the retrieved image is more vivid for those who visited the object-interactive site, they experienced greater confusion regarding which elements of this image are real or imagined, which led to more false positives."

In fact, traders are interested in consumers to remember information, a true memory, neglecting incorrect information which is not presented in commercials, a false memory. "Companies that offer interactive demonstrations to consumers could ultimately suffer from this kind of marketing, because consumers who discover that the product does not have attributes generated through false memories are likely to feel misled by the company and be less inclined to buy it", said Schlosser.