The shadows of my boyfriend and me while I photograph this charming facade with my mobile.
A recently published study in psychology is being reported around the internet with headlines along the lines of this article on slate.com called “Are All of Your Photo Memories Actually Making You Forget?”. The reports tend to concentrate on what the study’s author calls “the photo-taking-impairment effect”: the participants in the study were shown around a museum and asked to observe some objects and photograph others. Afterwards, they were asked what they remembered about the objects they had seen, and it turns out that the participants remembered less of what they had photographed than what they had observed.
So far, this sounds like bad news for mobile phone photography enthusiasts like myself. After all, I don’t want to keep shooting every day with my phone if that makes me remember less of life than I could have, right? However, the story is – thankfully – not that simple.
The study also shows, as described in this CNN article, that if the participants zoomed in, they remember more about the detail they zoomed in on as well as about the object as a whole. If a participant zoomed in on something, I assume it means that she had looked at the object and seen something worth getting closer to. And herein lies the key: observation and deliberation should come before you press the shutter.
In other words, I would argue that the study cannot be generalised to apply to every photographer and to every type of photography. It makes sense that you remember less if you point your camera towards an object, press the shutter and move on. But if you observe the object and consider what angle to approach from, look at how the light falls, decide on a narrow or a wide depth-of-field and whether to shoot landscape or portrait format before pressing the shutter, I am quite sure that you remember the object pretty well in spite of photographing it.
The same CNN article also quotes a clinical neuropsychologist who confirms that we need to engage our brain when processing a stimuli in order to remember it. Taking this point one step further on a phoneography-related note, might it have the same positive effect on our memory to spend time after shooting an image deciding which app and which filter to use for editing it?
Personally, I am not going to stop with my mobile 365 because of this study, but rather take it as a reminder to be deliberate about shooting and to be present in the moment of clicking.
Have you read about this study? What do you think? How do you experience the relationship between photography and memory? Tell us in the comments!
~ All the best from Jenny.
Oh how I love this discussion. I thought the article I read said you need to engage with the photos to commit them and the moment to memory, rather than snap and go. So I think if you spend a fair amount of time processing or printing or looking back thru your photos like most of us real photogs do, you are good.
I totally agree. And that’s part of the problem of how this study is reported in some of the articles I’ve read; if the participants were asked to snap and go – that’s my impression anyway, without having read the full study – then it seems pretty clear that the results cannot be generalised to apply to all photographers.
For me, my photos take me right into the moment I shot them, which completely enhances the memory of the time the picture was taken. That is what made me a photographer to begin with. Life was getting interesting and not having enough photos to document my life was unacceptable.
I do the same thing! Like little time travel tunnels.
Time travel tunnels! I love that phrase to describe what a picture does, Vanessa 🙂
I absolutely think photos can serve as a memory enhancement afterwards, yes. Though I wonder if photos might also shape my recollection of an event by making me remember better what I happen to have photos of. But maybe that doesn’t matter?
And I very much recognise the feeling of having an imperative need to document life.
Brilliant Jenny! So much food for thought. I’ve been trying to be more deliberate with my photography and loving the results.
I do think deliberation is what it takes to improve. I’m finding it very difficult sometimes to remember to stay present in the moment and the action of shooting – but that does make it all the more rewarding when it happens.
Do you think technical improvement can get in the way of deliberation? I wonder if I sometimes run too much on automatic even with the camera on manual, since the more I’m able to predict the light and the settings, the less I’m forced to be deliberate about what I do.
Actually, interestingly this year I have mainly just shot film which is very deliberate for me what the light meter and all! But then I worry that I miss the funny things too..
You mean the things you have to be quick on the trigger to catch? I can totally see that worry – and as usual, I’d say that doing the one thing (deliberate and slow and film) doesn’t mean we have to give up the other (fast and digital).
This is thought provoking and fantastic! Thanks for the brain food this morning.
Glad to provide 🙂 I’m a firm believer in the necessity of a regular supply of brain food!
(And on a side note, I mean brain food of this type and not the type I’m served at a conference hotel I visit regularly, where “brain food” means supposedly healthy but really very boring snacks and desserts.)
To me the article hit on the difference between the way I used to shoot digital when I was learning and the transformation that happened when I started shooting film. You know you’ve seen, or maybe you, like I, have been that person with the camera plastered in front of their face shooting everything willy nilly, not wanting to miss a detail. I would come away from those days without clear memories of the sequence of events, and I ,normally, have the memory of an elephant.
When I started shooting film, and slowed down, took me time, chose my moments and waited for that right shot, well, that process almost doubles down on the memory – of both the moment I took the image and the way I experienced & can remember the day as a whole.
As with all things, I think it’s way too simplistic to say that photography kills memory, it’s all in how you use it.
Oh, that’s interesting! Maybe it’s more correct to say that digital photography impairs memory? And I love that contrast between film and digital; you hit on one of the main reasons why I love film (and Polaroid) so much.
yesyesyes.
Loved this discussion! Personally, I have a crappy memory anyway. Taking a photograph is like giving myself a souvenir of that moment. Also, it’s okay with me that sometimes my photograph of a moment evokes a different feeling than the actual, literal memory of that event. All photography is editing and all real memory is relative to experience. Sometimes my kids are being beasts but I can still manage a nano-second to get a beautiful image of them together. I’d rather remember that nano-second than the whole event that was occurring at the time the image was taken.
And now to COMPLETELY ramble – this idea touches on remembering the details of a “object” rather than a “moment.” I wonder how the study would have been shaped if people were photographing action.
Thank you – so many interesting ideas to consider here!
I love the reminder that memory is relative to experience. Maybe it doesn’t matter that a photo might change and control what I remember from an event (like I complained about in a comment above), since there is no fixed, objective version of my memory in the first place.
I would LOVE to see a similar study done with actions, moments or people as the participants’ motifs (though to what extent that would be methodologically possible I don’t know). My hypothesis would be that the photo-taking-impairment effect would be less noticeable since the participants would have to be much more attentive when they’re shooting something that’s moving and changing than they had to with random still objects.
What a great discussion. For me I think there is a world of difference between someone with any sort of camera/camera phone in hand who just heedlessly clicks away and someone looking, seeing, attending to their surrounding and making decisions about what they want to capture, how and why. Lack of attending to stimuli is one factor in us not remembering certainly scenarios, people etc. when we attend to what we are doing, seeing and with whom we are engaging we are helping those neural pathways form.
I will remember this morning’s low sun shining through church windows beside the staff room at work because it called me and I had to capture it. As I will also remember the man with the interesting face who asked me to not take his photograph. Once I had seen him that missed shot is seared in my memory.
There is also a great deal of evidence of the use of photographs I helping those with failing memory and Alzheimer’s Disease recall their family members and past events.
Thank you for sharing this, it is certainly very interesting.
Lynn
Oh, yes – that’s it exactly. I think it’s a great gift that photography teaches us to be more attentive to the stimuli we experience.
I didn’t know about the Alzheimer connection – that’s very interesting.
So interesting. Love mulling this over!
Glad to hear it, Meghan 🙂
Jenny, I always appreciate the thoughtful approach that you bring to MM! What a wonderful topic for conversation. This study is small in scope (73 people), as one of the articles mentioned, and has a gender and age bias. Also, I assume that how the tests were run could alter the outcome, but…all in all it’s very interesting, especially given the current love and common use of photography.
Of particular note was the quote from Paul D. Nussbaum, clinical neuropsychologist at the U of P School of Medicine, “The more we engage our brain into processing a stimuli and the more personal the processing is, the more solid the memory formation and recall”. I find this key to the way I make photographs. Using an intentional, analytical, and deliberate approach – vs. a snap-shot, shotgun approach – seems to enhance the process and memory making aspects. It always amazes me how many sensory memories come back when looking at photos – feelings, sounds scents, and emotions.
Although I was trained as a painter and work in a variety of mediums, photography makes me appreciate and notice the wonder of our world more than any other medium! Quite the memory maker and life enhancer!
I certainly agree that the study is interesting, keeping in mind its limitations. Not least it serves as an interesting baseline and starting point for further study.
May it be said that the study also has a photographer bias, so to speak? I wonder if any of the participants would define themselves as photographers, or if any of them took the analytical approach to photography – and whether the results would be different if they did?
very true.
I really enjoyed this article Jenny! The funny thing, is that I often wonder if I remember some of my childhood memories most because of the family photos! And the same thing goes for the photos that I’ve taken of family members who have since passed. One thing I found when thinking about this, is that often, there will be something particularly moving or striking to me today, that gets me to want to photograph it. And sometimes I take that shot just because I DO want to remember it some day down the road…or to remind me that at one time I thought it was special.
i thought of that, too, holly but then i thought of how photos were taken when we were younger and how it was so different in the frequency with which they were taken (digital = so much more and often nearly continuous and constant) as well as how they are treated afterwards, and i think that is an important distinction the argument is trying to make.
Yes! Absolutely agree.
Now that you mention it, I have the same thing about childhood memories. I wonder if the author of the study would say that we move our memories from inside our heads and into the photograph? I’m beginning to think that this memory-movement – and correspondingly the study’s photo-taking-impairment effect – doesn’t matter in the long run, since we probably remember the thing we photographed and the thing we didn’t equally little after a few years anyway, and then it aids our memory to have photographs.
My memory is horrible. It always has been tho. Remember this when I’m older. Photography has always helped me hang on to memories. This is especially true of people. I may not remember your name, but I’ll always remember that we met if I take your photo. Maybe I just need more suduko.
More sudoku as well as more photography it sounds like? Both are very good things if you ask me 🙂
I love it that you’ll always remember those you photograph – and really, to remember the person is much more important than the name!