Point-and-Shoot Memories: The Influence of Taking Photos on Memory for a Museum Tour
[READ IN FULL AT SOURCE, the Psychological Science OnlineFirst version of record of 5 December 2013, author copy, complete including both experiments, Table 1, both figures and the reference list] Henkel, L. A. (2014). 'Point-and-Shoot Memories: The Influence of Taking Photos on Memory for a Museum Tour.' Psychological Science 25(2), 396-402. doi:10.1177/0956797613504438. SOLE AUTHOR, Fairfield University, stated in the article's own author-contributions note. No conflicts declared. EXPERIMENT 1: 28 undergraduates recruited, 27 analysed, 6 men and 21 women, mean age 19.41. A guided tour of the Bellarmine Museum of Art, 30 objects, 15 photographed and 15 observed, counterbalanced across two sets, 20 seconds of viewing then either a photograph or 10 further seconds of looking, tested the next day. VISUAL DETAIL ACCURACY: .55 photographed against .64 observed, F(1, 26) = 10.95, p = .003. RECOGNITION THAT AN OBJECT HAD BEEN ENCOUNTERED: .88 against .91, F(1, 26) = 4.06, p = .05. SOURCE MEMORY: no advantage for photographed objects. FREE RECALL SHOWED NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL, .47 against .48, F(1, 26) = 0.09, p = .77, and she reports the null and drops it. EXPERIMENT 2: 46 undergraduates, 10 men and 36 women. 27 objects, nine photographed whole, nine photographed by zooming in on a specified part, nine observed. CRITICAL DESIGN FEATURE: 25 uninterrupted seconds of viewing for every object with photographing time added on top, so a photographed object got MORE total exposure, not less. VISUAL DETAIL: whole-photo .38, zoomed-part .46, observed .44, F(2, 90) = 5.15, p = .008; whole-photo significantly worse than observed, zoom not. WITHIN THE ZOOM CONDITION, memory for the feature zoomed in on (.48) did not differ from the feature not zoomed in on (.45), F(1, 45) = 0.97, p = .33, and her line is that the camera's eye is not the mind's eye. RECOGNITION: whole-photo .83, observed .87, zoomed-part .86, F(2, 90) = 4.03, p = .02. THE RESULT ALMOST NOBODY QUOTES, memory for which room the object was in: whole-photo .67, observed .74, ZOOMED-PART .45, F(2, 90) = 32.68, p < .001, so the condition that protected detail memory had by far the worst location memory, and she reads it as the cost of the attention that protected the detail. HER OWN PROPOSED MECHANISM IN THIS PAPER was offloading, that photographing enables people to dismiss the object from memory and rely on the camera to remember for them; that account has since been tested directly with contradictory results, which is a fact about a mechanism and not a criticism of her. HER OWN UNTESTED BOUNDARY CONDITION, verbatim: 'Future research should examine whether similar effects are seen when people are free to choose what objects to photograph. After all, people are likely to take photos of objects that they value, find important, or want to remember.' LIMITS TO STATE EVERY TIME: samples of 27 and 46, undergraduate, one museum.
[READ IN FULL AT SOURCE, the Psychological Science OnlineFirst version of record of 5 December 2013, author copy, complete including both experiments, Table 1, both figures and the reference list] Henkel, L. A. (2014). 'Point-and-Shoot Memories: The Influence of Taking Photos on Memory for a Museum Tour.' Psychological Science 25(2), 396-402. doi:10.1177/0956797613504438. SOLE AUTHOR, Fairfield University, stated in the article's own author-contributions note. No conflicts declared. EXPERIMENT 1: 28 undergraduates recruited, 27 analysed, 6 men and 21 women, mean age 19.41. A guided tour of the Bellarmine Museum of Art, 30 objects, 15 photographed and 15 observed, counterbalanced across two sets, 20 seconds of viewing then either a photograph or 10 further seconds of looking, tested the next day. VISUAL DETAIL ACCURACY: .55 photographed against .64 observed, F(1, 26) = 10.95, p = .003. RECOGNITION THAT AN OBJECT HAD BEEN ENCOUNTERED: .88 against .91, F(1, 26) = 4.06, p = .05. SOURCE MEMORY: no advantage for photographed objects. FREE RECALL SHOWED NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL, .47 against .48, F(1, 26) = 0.09, p = .77, and she reports the null and drops it. EXPERIMENT 2: 46 undergraduates, 10 men and 36 women. 27 objects, nine photographed whole, nine photographed by zooming in on a specified part, nine observed. CRITICAL DESIGN FEATURE: 25 uninterrupted seconds of viewing for every object with photographing time added on top, so a photographed object got MORE total exposure, not less. VISUAL DETAIL: whole-photo .38, zoomed-part .46, observed .44, F(2, 90) = 5.15, p = .008; whole-photo significantly worse than observed, zoom not. WITHIN THE ZOOM CONDITION, memory for the feature zoomed in on (.48) did not differ from the feature not zoomed in on (.45), F(1, 45) = 0.97, p = .33, and her line is that the camera's eye is not the mind's eye. RECOGNITION: whole-photo .83, observed .87, zoomed-part .86, F(2, 90) = 4.03, p = .02. THE RESULT ALMOST NOBODY QUOTES, memory for which room the object was in: whole-photo .67, observed .74, ZOOMED-PART .45, F(2, 90) = 32.68, p < .001, so the condition that protected detail memory had by far the worst location memory, and she reads it as the cost of the attention that protected the detail. HER OWN PROPOSED MECHANISM IN THIS PAPER was offloading, that photographing enables people to dismiss the object from memory and rely on the camera to remember for them; that account has since been tested directly with contradictory results, which is a fact about a mechanism and not a criticism of her. HER OWN UNTESTED BOUNDARY CONDITION, verbatim: 'Future research should examine whether similar effects are seen when people are free to choose what objects to photograph. After all, people are likely to take photos of objects that they value, find important, or want to remember.' LIMITS TO STATE EVERY TIME: samples of 27 and 46, undergraduate, one museum.
Written from the rEAD IN FULL AT SOURCE, the Psychological Science OnlineFirst version of record of 5 December 2013, author copy, complete including both experiments, Table 1, both figures and the reference list.
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Henkel, L. A. (2014). Point-and-Shoot Memories: The Influence of Taking Photos on Memory for a Museum Tour. Psychological Science, 25(2), 396-402. doi:10.1177/0956797613504438