The Human Memory

Schick and Vaughn talk about how the memory will reconstruct an instance in the past from a different perspective.  The example given in the book is how our memory of an instance of sitting down in the past is often seen in our minds from a perspective of looking at ourselves as if on television, rather than from the perspective we actually encountered while sitting down. 

I wonder if this is more of a result of our society being engrained with the phenomenon of television or if this is just how the mind operates constructively.  If we were living a thousand years ago, would our memories still work in this way when visualizing ourselves in a past moment?