Augmented Reality Based on SLAM to Assess Spatial Short-Term Memory

Spatial short-term memory is defined as the limited ability of people to retain and remember the location of elements for short periods of time. In this paper, we present the first AR app based on SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) to assess spatial short-term memory. A total of 55 participants were involved in a study for remembering the real place where four virtual objects were located in the real environment. The participants were divided into two groups: the ARGroup (the participants learned the location of the virtual objects in the real environment in an adaptation phase using AR) and the NoARGroup (the participants learned the location of the objects by looking at photographs). The results indicated that the performance outcomes in remembering objects and their location for the participants in the ARGroup were statistically significantly greater than those obtained by the participants in the NoARGroup. From this result and our observations, we can conclude that touring the augmented environment helped the participants to better remember the location of virtual objects added to the real scene compared to looking at photographs of the environment. Furthermore, statistically significant differences were not found in relation to gender or age. Finally, our app has several advantages: 1) Our app works in any environment and does not require adding real elements to the environment; 2) the evaluators can select any real environment and place the virtual elements where they want and even change them between sessions; and 3) our app could work similar to the way spatial memory does in everyday life.