Memory inception through gaze-contingent message exposure: using virtual reality to study media influence

Abstract Media messages shape our knowledge about the world, but measuring individual exposure and attention remains challenging. Emerging media offer a solution to studying message reception in simulated real-world environments, which may soon become the actual media environments in which we encounter messages. Here, we utilized virtual reality (VR) and eye-tracking to investigate message processing in a realistic virtual city environment populated with billboards. We introduced an inception-style manipulation where billboards initially overlooked by participants were covertly reintroduced based on real-time gaze tracking. Our findings show this algorithmic manipulation, undetected by participants, significantly boosted message memory retention for the targeted messages. This study reveals a path of media influence, demonstrating how undetected algorithmic manipulations can shape individual and collective memory. The findings carry practical and theoretical implications for diverse communication contexts, from advertising and public health to political messaging in the emerging metaverse ecosystem.