Is it because those that take photographs tend to rely on the photo
rather than their memories?
Bob
On 12/11/2013 9:52 PM, karl shah-jenner wrote:
John wrote:
Interesting article in Motherboard.vice.com
"If you want to make a memory, start by forgetting your camera. Two new
studies published in Psychological Science found that people who took
pictures of objects had more trouble remembering specific details about
them, where they were situated, and even if they had seen them at all.
it seems valid given:
I read that all participants were asked to note and observe
specific objects.. with some asked to also record them
photographically - and these participants had worse recollections of
the objects than the observers who did not photograph them.
I also note that photographers who recorded incomplete parts of the
object had better recrecollection of the objects than those who
recorded the whole object.
This all ties in with my experience and reading - humans have many
evolutionary imperfections in thought processing and memory.
The first limitation that comes into play is that we humans do not
have the ability to cognitively 'muti-task', instead we switch rapidly
between tasks often doing both tasks less well.
Secondly, we suffer cognitive blindness during complex tasks,
concentrating and focusing reduces our ability to form integrated
memories as we exclude what we deem 'superfluous information' during
these tasks - (and thus we fail to place the object of our focus into
the broad experience) - and the memory becomed detatched. Our memory
often discards detached memories. It's an evolutionary trait that
allowed us to discard memories of irrelevant, repetitious and
monotonous tasks.
Thirdly, while sight is our primary sense and one we place ahead of
other senses, it's weak, fallible and most corruptible when it comes
to building memories when compared to smell and hearing (touch is
similarly awful). 'Sight' is a memory process as much as a 'seeing'
one, with information taken in being compared to known memories
Finally the people who did not simply record (the whole) but rather
created (by actively selecting part of the whole) did better as they
became active participants, musch as a student who rewrites their
notes by paraphrasing them into their own words generally does better
than the student who simply records and reads.
Our brains are inherently lazy and happy to allow us to farm out
complex tasks to what we perceive as being better technologies. Once
farmed out, no participation is deemed necessary (again and
evolutionary trait - out of sight, out of mind - or, the danger is no
longer apparent .. time to relax)
of course we don't just have ONE brain inside our noggins, nor one
personality. Of course we think we do.. but that's just what they
want us to believe.. much as staff are happy to let the manager think
he's running the business.;)
My last few trips abroad I left the camera in the bag by choice which
was kinda hard to do, but I definitely have richer memories for it
karl
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--
Money can't buy happiness--- But somehow it's more comfortable to cry in
a Porsche than a Kia.
