Taking pictures inside a museum can actually diminish you memory of the visit and the objects you see there, researchers find.
Fairfield University researchers found that taking pictures inside a museum or historical places hinders a person's memory of the visit, according to a press release.
A group of students were taken on a tour of Bellarmine Museum of Art at Fairfield University. They were asked to remember certain details about objects there, either by photographing or simply observing it. The next day, all the students were tested on how much they remembered of the objects seen in the tour.
Psychological scientist Linda Henkel of Fairfield University found that the participants described objects they had photographed less accurately than the ones they had simply observed. Additionally, they were able to answer fewer questions about the photographed objects. She termed this as the "photo-taking impairment effect."
"When people rely on technology to remember for them - counting on the camera to record the event and thus not needing to attend to it fully themselves - it can have a negative impact on how well they remember their experiences," she explained in the press statement.
Another interesting observation Henkel made was that when a person zoomed in to capture minute details of an object, it preserved memory not just of the part of the object in focus but also parts that were out of the frame.
"These results show how the 'mind's eye' and the camera's eye are not the same," said Henkel.
For the sake of argument, let us question this finding by suggesting the photos we take can always act as a reminder for the objects we come across at a museum. Sure they can! But only if we actually go through the pictures we take.
"Research has suggested that the sheer volume and lack of organization of digital photos for personal memories discourages many people from accessing and reminiscing about them," said Henkel. "In order to remember, we have to access and interact with the photos, rather than just amass them."
Henkel decided on conducting this study after she saw many tourists reach for their smartphones and cameras to take pictures of archeological finds, historical artifacts and other objects in a museum. She wanted to analyze how effective taking pictures was in helping us remember an event later in life.
So the next time you see a board that says "No Pictures please," remember it might just be for your own good.
