Never before have people recorded more information about their lives than today. But what does this mean for the way we remember our lives and how we talk about them? A research team from the University of Würzburg and the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM) in Tübingen is trying to find answers to these questions. Together with JMU Professor Markus Appel and Professor Stephan Schwan from the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien Tübingen, they have published an article on autobiographical memory in the digital age in the renowned journal Psychological Inquiry. The article is intended to provide guidance in this still largely unexplored field.

Würzburg, October 7th, 2024 Technological developments have always been a mirror to human development. Starting from the point at which needs arise to the ability to satisfy these needs. The satisfaction of needs is actually at the centre of this development. The development of artificial intelligence has had its own history for decades and is therefore not seriously new, but it is undoubtedly one of the most radical innovations in human history.

It was not until the end of the 1990s that there was a transition from the original VHS cassette and its camera to smaller, more mobile technical devices, combined with a significant increase in multiple use as the devices became smaller and smaller. Similarly, the time for video and photo recordings continued to decline. In the 1970s, people still recorded isolated special events; today, many households have extensive recordings from before birth until well into adulthood. Today, however, digital recordings go much further and deeper, or for a better understanding from the analogue to the digital world in the breadth of a memory as well as in its depth.

Researchers at the University of Würzburg and the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien in Tübingen have recently been investigating the changes this entails for autobiographical memory. As the research group describes, the topic is still young and in its infancy.
„We can have very different intuitions about how this condensed record of our lives should be evaluated,“ explains Dr Fabian Hutmacher, a member of staff at the Chair of Communication Psychology and New Media at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg. „Some people hope, for example, that we will be able to counteract the weaknesses and distortions of human memory in this way. Others are more concerned that this will create new potential for abuse and surveillance.“

What we are today has evolved through interaction with our environment. For example, colour vision through the eye is a result of the interplay between human evolution and the diversity of flowers and plants. The fact that we draw on resources outside our own minds when we try to remember past events is therefore not an invention of the digital age, but a constant of human history.
From the perspective of a brain, we can certainly draw a comparison between the creation and contemplation of cave paintings as they were once created, to the creation of an image by a smartphone today and the thoughts that result.

„What distinguishes digital resources from these other options, however, is not only the aforementioned possibility of condensed recording, but also the fact that they provide us with a multimedia database that we can search relatively easily and that is available to us – at least potentially – anytime and anywhere,“ explains Fabian Hutmacher.

„Digital resources are not just passive memories, but also make it possible – using artificial intelligence, for example – to process and adapt recordings to create digital holiday or wedding albums. This can have a lasting impact on our view of past experiences,“ adds Professor Stephan Schwan, who heads the Realistic Representations working group at the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien in Tübingen.

Quantitative data, such as tracking running distances, heart rate and sleep cycles, is particularly well suited to discovering long-term behavioural trends. Other data such as photos and videos, on the other hand, are more likely to be used when it comes to reminiscing or reflecting on past events.
However, there are still many unknowns that need to be taken into account, especially when it comes to creating memories. It is to be expected that there will be growth in human intelligence that has not yet been recognised by artificial intelligence. „Autobiographical memories are an important part of what makes us human. This makes further research in the coming years all the more important.“

In reality, one aspect that could play a key role in the future is still very often overlooked. In the history of advertising, we fall back on repetitive events. In order to give something real authenticity, fonts, design and jewellery elements are taken from a time when similar activities already existed and put together to create new, more up-to-date designs for an element that is currently being courted. In order to solve psychological problems, people often look to the past because it is known that various events in life occur again and again. In many cases, the view from the perspective of business and economic events dominates. These are linear consequences, while cyclical consequences tend to appear in the background and broken.

In future studies, Fabian Hutmacher would like to investigate the intricacies of the interplay between recorded data and the memories we carry within us in more detail. He is also interested in the question of how the recorded data can be used and organised in such a way that it really helps people to remember their past. The Young Academy of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, to which Fabian Hutmacher was admitted at the beginning of 2024, is funding his research.

Original publication:

Hutmacher, F., Appel, M., & Schwan, S. (2024). Understanding autobiographical memory in the digital age: The AMEDIA-model. Psychological Inquiry, 35(2), 83–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2024.2384125

Imagesource Carola68 Pixabay