Memory and Technology: How We Use Information in the Brain and the World

222 Pages·2018·2.864 MB·English

by  Jason R. Finley, Farah Naaz, Francine W. Goh

Jason R. Finley · Farah Naaz 
Francine W. Goh
Memory
and
Technology
How We Use Information in the Brain
and the World
Memory and Technology
Jason R. Finley • Farah Naaz • Francine W. Goh
Memory and Technology
How We Use Information in the Brain
and the World
Jason R. Finley Farah Naaz
Department of Behavioral Sciences Department of Psychological & Brain
Fontbonne University Sciences
St. Louis, MO, USA University of Louisville
Louisville, KY, USA
Francine W. Goh
Department of Psychology
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Lincoln, NE, USA
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Preface
Humanity has always been the species that extends itself into the environment.
Memory is no exception. Internal memory is information stored in one’s brain, and
external memory is information stored outside of one’s brain (either socially or
technologically). Humans have a long history of using external memory, and we
interact extensively with it in our everyday lives.
External memory is integral to human cognition and behavior, though twenty-
first- century technology (e.g., smartphones, the Internet) may be changing how we
use it and how we use our own internal memory as well. However, psychological
research and theory on this overall topic has so far been limited and fragmentary.
With this book, we seek to rectify that.
The story of how this book came to be is one of friendship, fruitful disagreement,
scientific curiosity, ingenuity, and perseverance. This project arose from conversa-
tions (debates, really) between the first two authors, JRF and FN, about the extent to
which technology was helping or hurting human cognition. It was 2013, and we
were both postdoctoral researchers at Washington University in St. Louis. In lab
meetings, and over fruity cocktails at happy hour, we debated. Is human memory
getting worse? Is high-tech external memory supplanting us or augmenting us? Like
any good scientists, we decided that the only way to settle our lively disagreements
was empirically. But we found that barely any psychological data existed yet on this
important topic. So we joined forces to gather some.
But we did not have any funding. That is, until we discovered the crowdfunding
platform, Experiment.com. In 2014, with help from the SciFund Challenge and the
generous support of many backers (see Acknowledgments), we raised the funds
needed to develop and run a large survey in which we could ask just about every
question we could think of that we wanted answers to. We ran the survey in 2015
and then painstakingly analyzed our rich trove of new data over the next year or two,
with third author FWG joining us to lend a big assist with the qualitative data.
Naturally, each exciting answer led to more questions, and as we developed a frame-
work to make sense of our data, we also saw the ways that our questions connected
to a constellation of other research both within and beyond psychology, which no
one had yet brought together to review in one place. As we undertook such a review
v
vi Preface
ourselves, working on academic breaks and weekends, it became clear that this side
project of ours had bloomed into a larger endeavor than we had foreseen and one
that was unlikely to fit in the confines of a typical journal article. We had, in fact,
ended up writing a book.
Fortunately, the prospect of publication became a reality after JRF met with
Springer editor, Lilith Dorko, at the 2017 annual meeting of the Psychonomic
Society in Vancouver. After much revision, and peer review, the result is the book
that you are currently reading. The organization of the book is somewhat atypical.
There are three parts, which we characterize as the present, the past, and the future.
In Part I, the present, we report the results of our comprehensive survey on the inter-
play of internal and external memory in everyday life and how that is changing in
the early twenty-first century (N = 476 Mechanical Turk participants). The survey
included quantitative and qualitative questions about attitudes, beliefs, behaviors,
and experiences. In Part II, the past, we provide a thorough interdisciplinary review
of the disparate prior literature on external memory, including relevant theoretical
frameworks from disciplines across the sciences, arts, and humanities. In Part III,
the future, we synthesize our results with our review of the literature to offer a new
theoretical framework for understanding the interplay of internal and external mem-
ory. We also provide a guide to important dimensions, questions, and methods for
future research.
Briefly, our work reveals an overall picture of a growing symbiosis between
internal and external memory. The two complement and depend on each other.
Technological external memory (both low-tech and high-tech) is augmenting inter-
nal memory for episodic purposes and supplanting internal memory for semantic
and prospective purposes. The main strengths of internal memory are rapid conve-
nient access to frequently used information, rich vivid representations including
sensations and emotions, personal meaning, creativity, and security. The main
strengths of technological external memory are access to infrequently used informa-
tion, accuracy, precision, longevity, capacity, fidelity, and social sharing.
This book should be of interest to scholars and students of memory from a vari-
ety of disciplines, psychology in particular, as well as anyone curious about how
technology is affecting human memory. Internal and external memories have mutu-
ally shaped each other for tens of thousands of years and will continue to do so into
the future. Although we may not have settled every debate, with this book, we have
laid the groundwork for much-needed future work, both empirical and theoretical.
St. Louis, MO, USA Jason R. Finley
Louisville, KY, USA Farah Naaz
Lincoln, NE, USA Francine W. Goh
Acknowledgments
This work was made possible by crowdfunding through Experiment.com (formerly
MicroRyza), https://doi.org/10.18258/1866. We give our sincerest thanks to our gen-
erous backers: Pooja K. Agarwal, Richard Bunker, Rick Finley, Ruth Gardner, Anne
Kahrs, Denny Luan, Breanna McBride, Jill Moed, David G. Pavlick, Joan Saberhagen,
Clive Thompson, Steven Winebrenner, and 44 others (https://doi.org/10.18258/1866).
We are also grateful to the SciFund Challenge (https://www.scifundchallenge.org)
which helped us launch and complete our crowdfunding campaign. For helpful com-
ments, advice, references, data, and/or peer review, we thank Wolfgang Schönpflug,
Linda A. Henkel, Clive Thompson, Cathy Marshall, Emily Schryer, Michael A. Ross,
Laurel C. Newman, Todd Hennessy, Carrie L. Freeman, Julie A. Portman, Henry
L. Roediger, Sarah Kitsos at Kaspersky Lab, and Mike Hodges at BullGuard. We
thank Lilith Dorko, editor for Springer, for the opportunity to publish this work, and
K. Andrew DeSoto for introducing us to her.
vii
Contents
Part I Empirical Report (The Present)
1 Introduction and Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Design and Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 Results: Attitudes and Beliefs About Internal
and External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Data Cleaning and Scoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Attitudes and Beliefs: Internal Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Attitudes and Beliefs: External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Attitudes and Beliefs: Interplay Between Internal
and External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3 Results: Behaviors and Experiences with Internal
and External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Behaviors and Experiences: Internal Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Behaviors and Experiences: External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
General Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Everyday/Low-Tech Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Specific Forms of External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Taking Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
External Memory Retrieval Failures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Information Use and Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Emotions and Cues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Passwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
ix
x Contents
Phone Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Social Media and Social Use of Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Cameras and Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4 Results: The Interplay Between Internal
and External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Qualitative Data on the Interplay Between Internal
and External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Internal Memory: Relative Strengths and Uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
External Memory: Relative Strengths and Uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Internal Versus External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Symbiosis of Internal and External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Changes in the Interplay Between Internal
and External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Correlations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Composite Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Sex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Unease About Reliance on Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Personal Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Other Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Part II Literature Review (The Past)
5 Theoretical Perspectives from Across Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Transactive Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Metacognition (Metamemory) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Exograms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Prospective Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Working Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Human Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Cognitive Rehabilitation and Other Clinical Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Offloading Beyond Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6 Theoretical Perspectives from Other Disciplines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Philosophy of Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Dynamic Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Personal Information Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Library and Information Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Media and Cultural Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Contents xi
Collective Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Anthropology and Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Part III Discussion and Guide for Research (The Future)
7 A Framework and Methods for Researching the Interplay
of Internal and External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Summary of Results from the Current Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Framework for Interplay of Internal and External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Limitations of the Current Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Methods for Studying External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Developmental Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Content Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Ethnography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Experience Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Data from Beyond Academic Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
8 Important Dimensions and Unanswered Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Important Dimensions of External Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Dimensions Proposed by Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Dimensions We Propose for Further Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Other Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
When and Why Do People Use External Memory? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
How Can We Measure and/or Manipulate the Cost or Effort
of Using External Memory? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
How Do People Metacognitively Monitor and Control Their Use
of External Memory? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Is the Objective Accuracy of External Memory
Perhaps Overstated? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Backup Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Prospective Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Measurement and Operationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Developmental Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Classifying and Keeping Up with External
Memory Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Is Technology Making Memory Worse? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173