What Happens to Memory for Lecture Content When Students Take Photos of the Lecture Slides?

Students often take photos of slides during lectures. Research on the photo-taking-impairment effect suggests that this behavior could impair memory for lecture content, whereas other work suggests that photo-taking could cause memory benefits, at least for visually presented information. Two experi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of applied research in memory and cognition 2023-09, Vol.12 (3), p.421-430
Main Authors: Ditta, Annie S., Soares, Julia S., Storm, Benjamin C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
College Students
Higher Education
Human
Judgment
Lecture Method
Memory
Metacognition
School Learning
Volition
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Students often take photos of slides during lectures. Research on the photo-taking-impairment effect suggests that this behavior could impair memory for lecture content, whereas other work suggests that photo-taking could cause memory benefits, at least for visually presented information. Two experiments examined the effect of photographing lecture slides on memory for information that appeared on the lecture slides as well as information only spoken aloud by the lecturer. In Experiment 1, participants were assigned to take photos of some lecture slides, but not others, before being tested on memory for the material. Experiment 2 employed a yoked design in which half of the participants took photos of slides volitionally, whereas the other half were assigned to photograph the same slides nonvolitionally. Across both experiments, a photo-taking benefit was observed for on-slide information, regardless of volition condition. These findings contrasted with participants' metacognitive judgments of when taking a photo would benefit their memory. General Audience Summary Students often take photos of slides during lectures. Unfortunately, research on the photo-taking-impairment effect suggests that taking photos of lecture slides could impair memory for lecture content. In two experiments, we examined the effect of taking pictures of lecture slides on memory for information in the lecture by comparing memory test performance for information presented while participants took photos with information presented while they did not take photos. Information was divided into material presented on the lecture slides as well as material that was only spoken aloud by the lecturer. In Experiment 1, participants were assigned to take photos of some lecture slides but not others, before being tested on memory for the material. In Experiment 2, some participants were allowed to choose which slides to photograph, whereas other participants were instructed to take photos of those same slides and did not get to choose which slides to photograph. Across both experiments, a photo-taking benefit was observed for information presented on the slide regardless of volition condition, indicating that taking photos can help memory for lecture content written on slides. The effect of photo-taking on memory for information that was only spoken aloud was mixed, with Experiment 1 showing no benefit, but Experiment 2 revealing a benefit. Further work is needed to disambiguate these findings. I
ISSN:2211-3681
2211-369X
DOI:10.1037/mac0000069