
Forget in a Flash: A Further Investigation of the Photo-Taking-Impairment Effect - ArslanAtajanov
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211368117301687
======
saurik
I am shocked by this as I find myself mostly able to remember the moments when
I took a photo... like, I went to a wedding last week, and I have a really
strong memory of most of the photos I took _even though I have not yet looked
at any of them_. I would have assumed the process of paying careful attention
to a scene with the goal of capturing "the perfect moment" makes that moment
itself special and unique, not just from your analysis and critique but also
simply from how it forces that moment to be separate from the continuous
stream of time over which your interest would previously had have to have been
spread.

~~~
chris_st
> _the process of paying careful attention to a scene_

I think you've hit on the main thing here that (in a sense) differentiates you
from the "normal photographer". Honestly, a lot of people just "point and
shoot", in the article's "save an ephemeral memory" sense. You're taking the
time to make a careful composition (and artistic composition is not something
most people study). Your "capturing 'the perfect moment'" and "analysis and
critique" are just not something a lot of friends and family do on vacations.

Not that there's anything wrong with any of that! But I think that's probably
the difference here.

~~~
pretentiousPear
Agreed. Personally, I take photos daily - but a big portion of them is to
capture something I don't have time to write down or a capacity to remember.
Those could be adds in newspapers, clothing in some store etc.

------
visarga
On the other hand, photos reviewed 2-3 times (especially after few
months/years) become much more durable memories than those simply observed
directly. I tend to only remember things I have photographed in the last 20
years, that is why I take photos of things I want to make sure I will
remember. A photo can revive a whole lot of extra memories associated to the
moment.

~~~
epicide
I think the best approach is to only take a few photos of an event. Just
enough to be memory triggers.

Increasingly, we see people spending more time worried about photos than just
enjoying the thing they are photographing.

For events that do need more "documenting", then you should have a designated
photographer (professional or not) that way the rest of the attendees can just
enjoy it.

~~~
maym86
Do whatever you enjoy. If you like taking photos and want to spend your time
doing it good for you.

[https://xkcd.com/1314/](https://xkcd.com/1314/)

------
fifnir
Hm, this reminded me of the "A placebo can work even when you know it’s a
placebo" case: [https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/placebo-can-work-even-
kn...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/placebo-can-work-even-know-
placebo-201607079926)

We take a pill that we know will do nothing, and our body reacts anyway

We take a picture that we know will do nothing, and our body reacts anyway

What I see here is that our ""logic"" gives no feedback to the
""subconscious"" mechanisms that get formed, such as : "I take a pill, I get
better", "I take a picture, I will see this again"

------
AYBABTME
What's most interesting to me is that the conclusion seems to be that their
hypothesis wasn't quite right, and that offloading isn't quite what's
happening here:

    
    
        These results suggest that offloading may not be 
        the sole, or even primary, mechanism for the photo-
        taking-impairment effect.
    

I'm taking the time to comment on this because other comments seem to ignore
this interesting turn of event.

~~~
21
At a more meta-level, they basically failed to replicate their own paper (they
disproved the main hypothesis).

Which shows exactly what the big problem is: you just throw some ideas out, do
some statistical analysis, and presto, you are "a scientist discovered a new
thing"

~~~
nxc18
This is a big success. We need more scientists willing to publish dead ends
and ideas that turn out to be wrong. At the very least it hints at future
areas of research. A lot of great science involves testing common sense and
finding it's wrong.

They could have hacked their way to a positive result, good on them for not.

~~~
jjw1414
As a molecular biologist whose been in the field for nearly a quarter of a
century (ouch, I'm old), I can't tell you how important your comment is. Too
many times I've been to conferences where a small group of researchers is
informally discussing a common roadblock in a procedure or technique and one
in the group says, "We found out months ago that you can't use compound Y
because it inhibits X downstream". For the love of all that is good, why
didn't you publish that?! You could have saved countless combined hours and
materials for other labs and increased the rate of progress. We all know the
answer: Reviewers and editors want to publish flashy new discoveries, not
fizzled experiments. Online discussions and open access has helped the issue,
but the underlying pressure on scientists to publish only positive findings
and leave out the critical trial-and-error data must end as it is is
essentially fudging research and does a disservice to other researchers and
science as a whole, intended or not. Whew, that was cathartic. I'll fade back
into the shadows now.

~~~
fallous
I'd like to take the effort to thank you for staying true to the pursuit of
real science and trying to demand that others meet the standards. A well-
tested negative result is not a failed experiment, it is one less option to
pursue.

As I've been known to tell junior engineers that ask how to become expert in
some field, "the easiest way is to fail in every possible way without
repeating yourself. Whatever is left is correct. Note that I didn't say that's
the fastest way." Gaining new knowledge is always a combination of discovering
both dead ends and possible successful paths.

------
notacoward
This might be similar to the "write it down so you can stop thinking about it"
effect. I often have an idea, e.g. for a blog post, that I just can't seem to
get rid of. My mind just keeps turning it over and over. Then I write a draft,
and _poof_ I stop thinking about it. The fact that I usually don't finish
turning the draft into a real post is a separate problem. ;)

There really is something about "offloading" those thoughts into some external
place, and I really don't see why the authors even think it's relevant if it's
subsequently deleted. The damage has already been done, the thing already
partly forgotten, the instant the picture is taken. Did it ever seem likely
that we'd have to check back multiple times to see whether a memory was stored
elsewhere before forgetting it? Certainly when I've forgotten stuff that's
never how it has been. Once is enough.

~~~
organsnyder
That's one of the key things I learned when I read the Getting Things Done
book. If I'm stressing out about the number of different tasks I need to get
done, capturing them (whether writing them down, putting them in Trello, etc.)
helps me to not dwell on them, allowing me to more easily focus on a single
task.

------
ginko
I wonder if you'd get different results with analog photography.

I'm really into film photography and I find I remember the motives I'm
shooting quite well. Maybe that's because with film you're more deliberate in
what you shoot and due to the sense of anticipation to seeing the final
result.

~~~
saudioger
The study tested people who would lose access to the photos immediately or
delete them intentionally, and they still succumbed to the effect... so I'd
expect it would be similar for analog.

I think the the more important distinction you mentioned is that photographers
who are a bit beyond amateur are more likely to analyze what they're shooting,
and therefore remember it.

~~~
seba_dos1
They have still seen them after taking, which is what might actually be a
trigger for the discussed offloading effect.

------
seba_dos1
How about seeing the photo itself? I'd be interested in testing situations
where you take a photo but don't see it even once, not even the preview after
taking it (for instance, using an analog camera). As I understand it, both
situations tested here forced you to see the taken photo, which may actually
be the trigger for the effect, not the photo taking action itself.

------
subroutine
This study is confounded and made unnecessarily complicated by using Snapchat.
The experimental design should have been to instruct participants that during
two (of the three) sessions they will be required to take a photo of each
painting using the native camera app; and photos from one of the sessions will
be available for reference during the test.

------
djrogers
I think there’s a lot of information we take in about our surroundings
(sounds, smell, peripheral vision, motion, etc) that all gets shoved in to a
‘memory’. When we are focused on taking pictures, we block that stuff out -
either physically (peripheral vision) or mentally (sound, smells).

------
lolc
Obviously if I'm operating recording equipment I'm less receptive to my
surroundings. That's all they found. I don't see how this should be called
"offloading". I'd call it "overloading".

------
DonHopkins
Does Google Glass continuously wipe your memory?

------
wetpaws
I had this problem with digital photography and was scared SHITLESS. Glad this
is a known effect.

