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Forums > General Discussion > Prince was right. If you really want to remember a moment, try not to take a photo
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Thread started 09/23/17 9:42pm

morningsong

Prince was right. If you really want to remember a moment, try not to take a photo

Linda Henkel, a professor of psychology at Fairfield University in Connecticut, studied how taking photos impacts experience and memory by crafting an experiment using a group of undergraduates on a guided tour of the university’s Bellarmine Museum of Art. The students were asked to take photos of objects that they looked at on the tour and to simply observe others.

The next day, she brought the students into her research lab to test their memory of all the objects they had seen on the tour. Whenever they remembered a piece of work, she asked follow-up questions about specific visual details. The results were clear: overall, people remembered fewer of the objects they had photographed. They also couldn’t recall as many specific visual details of the photographed art, compared to the art they had merely observed.


http://ideas.ted.com/if-y...photo/amp/
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Reply #1 posted 09/27/17 7:57am

nextedition

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And how much does the group without pics still remember after 6 months? You know,when the other group still can look at the pics they have?
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Reply #2 posted 09/27/17 9:47am

RodeoSchro

On a similar vein, I've always felt this way about music videos. I will admit that I was an MTV junkie when it first came on. But after a few years, I realized I was associating new songs with videos, whereas I associated old songs with actual life experiences.

For instance, when I hear Pat Benatar's "Shadows of the Night" I think about Pat Benatar blowing up Nazis.

But when I hear Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", which came out before there was an MTV, I think about that spring break in Ft. Lauderdale in 1981, where it was the most popular song.

So I do understand how seeing something live rather than photographing it or watching it on a device.

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Reply #3 posted 09/27/17 10:12am

OldFriends4Sal
e

the human brain can destroy memories and the individual can distort the image

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Reply #4 posted 09/27/17 2:48pm

namepeace

I know from personal experience that that is true.

Good night, sweet Prince | 7 June 1958 - 21 April 2016

Props will be withheld until the showing and proving has commenced. -- Aaron McGruder
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Reply #5 posted 09/27/17 4:24pm

morningsong

I wouldn't say that taking a picture doesn't preserve an event, we all know that's not true. But I'm sure we all have tons of old family photographs that nobody remembers a thing about what's going or who's in them, so just taking a picture in and of itself doesn't preserve the memory either, though it preserves the accuracy of the event, unless there is a narrative attached, the photo doesn't mean much.

[Edited 9/27/17 16:26pm]

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Forums > General Discussion > Prince was right. If you really want to remember a moment, try not to take a photo