Memory of art often better without a picture
By Ellen Gamerman, Wall Street Journal
As museums swarm with visitors snapping photos in their galleries, new research suggests people who take pictures of art with their camera phones remember less about the works than those who don’t.
A study released this month found that people remember 10 percent fewer objects and roughly 12 percent fewer details about the objects they’ve seen if they’ve photographed them rather than simply looked at them.
“When you press click on that button for the camera, you’re sending a signal to your brain saying, ‘I’ve just outsourced this, the camera is going to remember this for me,'” said Linda Henkel, a psychology professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut, who led the study. “The photos are trophies. You want to show people where you were rather than saying, ‘Hey, this is important, I want to remember this.'”
