Photographic Memory: The Effects of Volitional Photo Taking on Memory for Visual and Auditory Aspects of an Experience
[READ IN FULL AT SOURCE, the author copy, including both meta-analyses and Table 1] Barasch, A., Diehl, K., Silverman, J., & Zauberman, G. (2017). 'Photographic Memory: The Effects of Volitional Photo Taking on Memory for Visual and Auditory Aspects of an Experience.' Psychological Science 28(8), 1056-1066. doi:10.1177/0956797617694868. CREDIT NOTE THAT MATTERS AND MUST TRAVEL WITH ANY CITATION: their own author note states 'All the authors contributed equally to this article, and the order of authorship is alphabetical', so Barasch is first in the citation but the paper is not hers in the usual sense; name the four or write 'Barasch and colleagues' without implying lead authorship. Open Data badge, data at osf.io/hrzgs. Funded by a Marketing Science Institute grant to Diehl and Zauberman. No conflicts declared. THE DESIGN CHANGE THAT PRODUCES THE REVERSAL, verbatim: 'in previous work, participants were told which objects to photograph and which to merely examine (Henkel, 2014). Although this approach provided experimental control, it eliminated a distinct attentional process inherent to natural photo taking: In order to decide what to photograph, people must search for aspects of an experience that they may wish to capture.' STUDY 1, FIELD: 297 recruited, 294 analysed, mean age 20.4, a real self-guided tour of an Etruscan exhibit with an audio guide, camera condition keeping their own phones, nine visual and nine auditory recognition questions, no warning of a memory test. Visual 66.51 per cent with a camera against 59.83 without, F(1, 292) = 12.61, p < .001. Auditory 75.34 against 77.93, not significant, F(1, 292) = 1.80, p = .181. Both conditions took the same total time and controlling for time did not change the result. STUDIES 2 TO 4, laboratory, first-person video gallery tours, N = 298, 751 and 349: visual memory better with a camera in every one, auditory memory significantly worse in each. STUDY 3 IS THE DECISIVE ONE FOR MECHANISM, modelled on the Google-effect paradigm with photographs saved against deleted against no camera: visual 84.22 and 85.71 against 77.51, and the two camera conditions did not differ; their conclusion is 'these results do not support the notion that people offload memory for their experiences to photographs.' STUDY 4: merely taking MENTAL photographs produced the same visual benefit, 88.03 against 80.79, so it is not the button press. TWO SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES using an unnarrated London bus tour replicated the visual advantage, 68.20 against 53.65 and 80.12 against 70.00. META-ANALYSIS ACROSS ALL SIX, verbatim: 'photo taking had a reliable positive effect on visual memory (d = 0.54, 95% CI [0.45, 0.63]) and a smaller but reliable negative effect on auditory memory (d = 0.26, 95% CI [0.16, 0.36]).' THE CONTROL THAT MAKES IT HARD TO DISMISS: within camera conditions, photographed aspects better than non-photographed, d = 0.33; against no-camera, photographed aspects d = 0.75; and memory for aspects the camera users did NOT photograph was still d = 0.26 better than no-camera at all, so holding a camera improved memory for things it was never pointed at. THEIR OWN LIMITS: a short delay, no revisiting of the photographs, and visual information naturally salient in all their contexts, which they say may have inflated the effect. WHAT MAY NOT BE SAID FROM THIS PAPER: that photo-taking improves memory. State the channel or state nothing.
[READ IN FULL AT SOURCE, the author copy, including both meta-analyses and Table 1] Barasch, A., Diehl, K., Silverman, J., & Zauberman, G. (2017). 'Photographic Memory: The Effects of Volitional Photo Taking on Memory for Visual and Auditory Aspects of an Experience.' Psychological Science 28(8), 1056-1066. doi:10.1177/0956797617694868. CREDIT NOTE THAT MATTERS AND MUST TRAVEL WITH ANY CITATION: their own author note states 'All the authors contributed equally to this article, and the order of authorship is alphabetical', so Barasch is first in the citation but the paper is not hers in the usual sense; name the four or write 'Barasch and colleagues' without implying lead authorship. Open Data badge, data at osf.io/hrzgs. Funded by a Marketing Science Institute grant to Diehl and Zauberman. No conflicts declared. THE DESIGN CHANGE THAT PRODUCES THE REVERSAL, verbatim: 'in previous work, participants were told which objects to photograph and which to merely examine (Henkel, 2014). Although this approach provided experimental control, it eliminated a distinct attentional process inherent to natural photo taking: In order to decide what to photograph, people must search for aspects of an experience that they may wish to capture.' STUDY 1, FIELD: 297 recruited, 294 analysed, mean age 20.4, a real self-guided tour of an Etruscan exhibit with an audio guide, camera condition keeping their own phones, nine visual and nine auditory recognition questions, no warning of a memory test. Visual 66.51 per cent with a camera against 59.83 without, F(1, 292) = 12.61, p < .001. Auditory 75.34 against 77.93, not significant, F(1, 292) = 1.80, p = .181. Both conditions took the same total time and controlling for time did not change the result. STUDIES 2 TO 4, laboratory, first-person video gallery tours, N = 298, 751 and 349: visual memory better with a camera in every one, auditory memory significantly worse in each. STUDY 3 IS THE DECISIVE ONE FOR MECHANISM, modelled on the Google-effect paradigm with photographs saved against deleted against no camera: visual 84.22 and 85.71 against 77.51, and the two camera conditions did not differ; their conclusion is 'these results do not support the notion that people offload memory for their experiences to photographs.' STUDY 4: merely taking MENTAL photographs produced the same visual benefit, 88.03 against 80.79, so it is not the button press. TWO SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES using an unnarrated London bus tour replicated the visual advantage, 68.20 against 53.65 and 80.12 against 70.00. META-ANALYSIS ACROSS ALL SIX, verbatim: 'photo taking had a reliable positive effect on visual memory (d = 0.54, 95% CI [0.45, 0.63]) and a smaller but reliable negative effect on auditory memory (d = 0.26, 95% CI [0.16, 0.36]).' THE CONTROL THAT MAKES IT HARD TO DISMISS: within camera conditions, photographed aspects better than non-photographed, d = 0.33; against no-camera, photographed aspects d = 0.75; and memory for aspects the camera users did NOT photograph was still d = 0.26 better than no-camera at all, so holding a camera improved memory for things it was never pointed at. THEIR OWN LIMITS: a short delay, no revisiting of the photographs, and visual information naturally salient in all their contexts, which they say may have inflated the effect. WHAT MAY NOT BE SAID FROM THIS PAPER: that photo-taking improves memory. State the channel or state nothing.
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Barasch, A., Diehl, K., Silverman, J., & Zauberman, G. (2017). Photographic Memory: The Effects of Volitional Photo Taking on Memory for Visual and Auditory Aspects of an Experience. Psychological Science, 28(8), 1056-1066. doi:10.1177/0956797617694868