Recently, my university adopted a smoke free campus policy, banning smoking everywhere on campus. A few weeks ago I was I saw blind woman smoking a cigarette standing right in front of a large no-smoking sign. While this story raises a number interesting questions, one of the most striking things I found was the most common response to hearing it was: “did you take a photo?” Unfortunately, while I certainly could have, the thought never crossed my mind.
I have often wondered if some people are more photo oriented than others, and I have somethings felt that taking a photo diminishes the immediate experience. Recently, I came across this paper in Psychological Science that suggests that photo taking might interfere with the memory of the very event we are photographing. Here is the abstract:
“Two studies examined whether photographing objects impacts what is remembered about them. Participants were led on a guided tour of an art museum and were directed to observe some objects and to photograph others. Results showed a photo-taking-impairment effect: If participants took a photo of each object as a whole, they remembered fewer objects and remembered fewer details about the objects and the objects’ locations in the museum than if they instead only observed the objects and did not photograph them. However, when participants zoomed in to photograph a specific part of the object, their subsequent recognition and detail memory was not impaired, and, in fact, memory for features that were not zoomed in on was just as strong as memory for features that were zoomed in on. This finding highlights key differences between people’s memory and the camera’s “memory” and suggests that the additional attentional and cognitive processes engaged by this focused activity can eliminate the photo-taking-impairment effect.”
Note that the effect occurs only under certain circumstances, so you might want to adjust your photo taking in order to enjoy both your snapshots and your memories.
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