Immersive Episodic Memory Assessment with 360° Videos: The Protocol and a Case Study

Episodic memory has been conceptualized as the memory for personal events with specific spatiotemporal components. The assessment of episodic memory is usually conducted by means of verbal recall tasks, in which the individual is required to repeat what (s)he remembers from a previously presented verbal material (either single words or a brief story). However, the need of a more ecological approach to memory assessment led researchers to investigate the potential use of 360° videos as a suitable tool to present real life scenes to be remembered. The present study presents the protocol of the assessment of episodic memory employing five 360° video that represent interpersonal, emotional experiences known to be altered in psychopathological conditions. Furthermore, a case study in which the assessment protocol is applied to a patient with Borderline Personality Disorder is described. The results of the case study seem to indicate that our 360° videos are able to detect anomalies in remembering the behaviors displayed, the connected emotion together with details regarding the “where” and “when” components of the episodic recall.