But First, Let Me Take a Selfie: How Different Photographic Perspectives Impact the Subject’s Emotional Reexperience & Memory of a Photo

Abstract

For many decades there has been research done on the concept of memory, and how humans recall memories. Most important to the present study is the field vs. observer framework of memory recollection that has been discovered. In which, field perspective memories are ones that are remembered as if the person, themself, is reliving a memory through their own eyes. Observer memories are ones that are remembered through a more removed visual perspective of watching one’s past self in the memory. The current study uses that scaffolding and applies it to a new context: photo taking and viewing. The study employs two conditions: a selfie condition and a non-selfie condition, for a total of 83 participants across both. It also utilizes a two part design. For Part 1, which was completed in person at emotion provoking events, both conditions got their picture taken, either by themselves if they were in the selfie condition, or by the researcher if they were in the non-selfie condition. After their picture was taken, all participants took an affect questionnaire (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, or “PANAS”) to evaluate their momentary emotional state. Part 2, which was an online survey, was sent to participants via email eight days after their completion of Part 1. In this survey, participants viewed their image from Part 1, then completed the PANAS questionnaire again, to see if viewing their image re-evoked the same emotions they experienced when their image was taken. Viewing the selfie condition image is meant to simulate a field perspective, and viewing the non-selfie condition image is meant to simulate an observer perspective. Then, they completed a color/memory task. This task used three items, a frog plushie, a pompom, and a mug, all of which were present in the background of all the participant images from Part 1. In the Part 2 survey, grayscale pictures of those three items were shown to participants and they were asked to indicate what color they remembered each being. There were two hypotheses of the study: 1) the non-selfie condition would more accurately emotionally reexperience the event the photo was taken at when participants looked at their image on a later date, 2) the selfie condition would better remember the event their photo was taken at when looking at their image on a later date. The results of the affect questionnaires were used to evaluate the first hypothesis, and although the data showed support in favor of the hypothesis, these results were not statistically significant. On the other hand, the color/ memory task was used to evaluate the second hypothesis, and the results were also in support of the hypothesis. For the frog plushie and the pompom, the results were just about (frog plushie), or were (pompom), statistically significant, however results for the mug were not statistically significant. This inconsistency highlighted some of the limitations of the study’s design. But, overall, this study can still be used in a general sense to explore how photo taking and subsequent photo viewing, which is ever present in today’s world, impacts our emotional states and our memory.