Memory and Technology

Question 1

What Types of Technology Can We Consider? (3)

Answer 1

1. GPS
2. Social Media
3. Photos

Question 2

GPS and Memory - Hippocampal differences in taxi drivers vs. bus drivers?

Answer 2

• Taxi drivers show a larger hippocampus than bus drivers.
• Correlated with years of experience

Question 3

What does greater lifetime GPS use lead to?

Answer 3

• Greater lifetime GPS use was associated with poorer spatial navigation and memory in the lab
• What does this finding suggest?
  Dependence

Question 4

Social Media - daily diary experiment:

Answer 4

when participants reported higher use of social media, they also reported more memory failures (of various types)

Question 5

Social Media - university experiment:

Answer 5

In live university classes, students who engaged in greater media multitasking often did more poorly on tests

Question 6

Social Media - multi-tasking and memory performance:

Answer 6

Other work suggests more chronic media multitasking is associated with poorer memory performance; (even under conditions where there is no media use)

Question 7

Reviewing/Looking at Photos

Answer 7

• Reviewing photos from events increases memory for those events
• Memory for non-reviewed events that occurred around that time can be reduced —retrieval induced forgetting
• AVA NOTE - I.E. increased memory of reviewed photos, decreased memory of unreviewed photos

Question 8

Reviewing/Looking at Photos - WEDDING EXAMPLE

Answer 8

• People debating having a videographer: “you’ll only remember what’s in the video!”
• Also living through pictures, harder to remember what happened in between then

Question 9

HippoCamera - effects on memory and activity

Answer 9

• Events that were replayed with HippoCamera evoked more positive emotions during their recall
• HippoCamera replay led to sharpened hippocampal activity (reduced overlap between memories)

Question 10

Taking Photos - studies AGAINST

Answer 10

• Some studies suggest photo taking impairs later memory (EX: recording an entire concert)
• Effect shown even if participants are told photos are deleted, suggesting it is not due to cognitive offloading: relying on external devices instead of one’s own cognition
• Could be due to distraction of photo taking, reducing encoding

Question 11

Taking Photos - studies FOR

Answer 11

But…other studies show benefits of photo taking if participant is allowed to choose what they photograph, zoom in, etc.

Question 12

Sharing Photos

Answer 12

Sharing memories on social media can enhance memory for that content

Question 13

It is possible that the act of sharing some events harms our memory for non-shared and related events, AKA…

Answer 13

Retrieval induced forgetting

Question 14

(Technology as) Cognitive Augmenting

Answer 14

the use of external sources to extend the biological capabilities of memory (rather than to replace it)

Question 15

How might digital externalizations of memories affect emotion regulation?

Answer 15

• Autobiographical memories help direct future action, form social bonds, and maintain a sense of self. Emerging research suggests that revisiting autobiographical memories also helps people to regulate emotions – but this is relatively unexplored in the digital realm
• How might subtle photo edits (e.g., improving one’s appearance) affect one’s self-worth and how one remembers the affective tone of an event?

Question 16

RECALL: domain stuff