Interactive Websites = Faulty Memory?

Via Collision Detection, a summary of a paper regarding marketing and interactivity. The study used two versions of sample websites marketing the same digital camera. The researchers introduced false information in both and the group that used the interactive site tended to be influenced by the false information.

The implication for marketing is that they might need to start testing for both positive and negative when doing market research. But for other fields, like interactive art, this study could yield interesting work. Viewing/listening/experiencing any work of art is already a test of memory, either in developing greater understanding of the significance of the work or in your later perception of the work. Music is especially sensitive to this, and some psychoacousticians have even suggested that human's musical memory is somewhere between 2-3 seconds.

Pulitzer winner Roger Reynolds has done some work tagentally related, as has Leigh Landy and his colleagues. While I'm not really interested in studies on audience perception, I am interested in creating experiences that may result in a variety of experiences for the audience members.