Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Results: The Interplay Between Internal and External Memory

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Memory and Technology

  • 1108 Accesses

Abstract

In this chapter we finish reporting the results of our comprehensive survey study on the interplay of internal and external memory in everyday life and how that is changing in the early twenty-first century (N = 476 Mechanical Turk participants). We report on the themes that emerged from the qualitative data on the interplay between internal and external memory, and we also report correlational analyses. Participants’ responses indicated that internal memory is used more than external memory for episodic and procedural purposes, and its strengths are in rich vivid recollection, phenomenology, personal relevance, creativity, and security; external memory is used more than internal memory for semantic and prospective purposes, and its strengths are in accuracy, precision, fidelity, longevity, and capacity. The overall picture is of a growing symbiosis between internal and external memory; the two complement and depend on each other.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Remembering faces was coded as both episodic and semantic, because recognizing someone’s face could involve memory for a specific episode (e.g., someone you only just met yesterday) and/or more generalized memory (e.g., a colleague you see nearly every day). We thank Hal Pashler, Roddy Roediger, Sharda Umanath, and Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel for their thoughtful comments on this point.

  2. 2.

    Shopping/grocery and to-do lists were coded as both semantic and prospective, because such lists comprise knowledge not tied to a specific past episode, and they indicate tasks to be performed in the future. Unspecified types of lists were coded as just semantic. Note that list-learning in laboratory memory studies is considered an episodic task; however we consider the use of lists in everyday life as semantic and/or prospective, not episodic. For a sociological consideration of recipes as external memory, see Goody (1977, pp. 129–145).

  3. 3.

    In contrast, Schryer and Ross (2013) found no correlation between self-reported memory errors as measured by the Everyday Memory Questionnaire and use of external memory aids as measured by the Memory Compensation Questionnaire, for either younger or older adults (E. Schryer, personal communication, August 7, 2014).

References

  • Batcho, K. I. (2013). Nostalgia: The bittersweet history of a psychological concept. History of Psychology, 16(3), 165–176.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bjork, R. A. (1994). Memory and metamemory considerations in the training of human beings. In J. Metcalfe & A. P. Shimamura (Eds.), Metacognition: Knowing about knowing (pp. 185–205). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bjork, R. A. (2015). Forgetting as a friend of learning. In D. S. Lindsay, C. M. Kelley, A. P. Yonelinas, & H. L. Roediger III (Eds.), Remembering: Attributions, processes, and control in human memory: Papers in honour of Larry L. Jacoby (pp. 15–28). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bouazzaoui, B., Isingrini, M., Fay, S., Angel, L., Vanneste, S., Clarys, D., & Taconnat, L. (2010). Aging and self-reported internal and external memory strategy uses: The role of executive functioning. Acta Psychologica, 135(1), 59–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ceci, S. J., & Bronfenbrenner, U. (1985). “Don’t forget to take the cupcakes out of the oven”: Prospective memory, strategic time-monitoring, and context. Child Development, 56(1), 152–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davalos, S., Merchant, A., Rose, G. M., Lessley, B. J., & Teredesai, A. M. (2015). ‘The good old days’: An examination of nostalgia in Facebook posts. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 83, 83–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diehl, M., Marsiske, M., Horgas, A. L., Rosenberg, A., Saczynski, J. S., & Willis, S. L. (2005). The revised observed tasks of daily living: A performance-based assessment of everyday problem solving in older adults. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 24(3), 211–230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dixon, R. A., Hultsch, D. F., & Hertzog, C. (1988). The Metamemory in Adulthood (MIA) questionnaire. Psychopharmacology Bulletin, 24(4), 671–688.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Eskritt, M., Lee, K., & Donald, M. (2001). The influence of symbolic literacy on memory: Testing Plato’s hypothesis. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55(1), 39–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flavell, J. H., & Wellman, H. M. (1975, August). Metamemory. Paper presented at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, IL. Retrieved from ERIC database. (ED115405).

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, M. C. (2014). Notes on note-taking: Review of research and insights for students and instructors. Unpublished manuscript, Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Retrieved from http://hilt.harvard.edu/files/hilt/files/notetaking_0.pdf

  • Frohlich, D. M. (2004). Audiophotography: Bringing photos to life with sounds. New York, NY: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Frohlich, D. M. (2016). Review of the book Aging and the digital life course, by D. Prendergast & C. Garattini (Eds.). Journal of Population Ageing, 9(4), 385–388.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goody, J. (1977). The domestication of the savage mind. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamilton, K. A., McIntyre, K. P., & Hertel, P. T. (2016). Judging knowledge in the information age: The role of external-memory organization. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 30(6), 1080–1087.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horrigan, J. B. (2016, December). Information overload. Retrieved from Pew Research Center website: http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/12/07/information-overload/

  • Intons-Peterson, M. J., & Fournier, J. (1986). External and internal memory aids: When and how often do we use them? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 115(3), 267–280.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Intons-Peterson, M. J., & Newsome, G. L. (1992). External memory aids: Effects and effectiveness. In D. J. Herrmann, H. Weingartner, A. Searleman, & C. McEvoy (Eds.), Memory improvement: Implications for memory theory (pp. 101–121). New York, NY: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, M. K., Hashtroudi, S., & Lindsay, D. S. (1993). Source monitoring. Psychological Bulletin, 114(1), 3–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kalnikaitė, V., & Whittaker, S. (2008, September). Cueing digital memory: How and why do digital notes help us remember? Proceedings of the 22nd British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Culture, Creativity, Interaction-Volume 1 (pp. 153–161). British Computer Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaspersky Lab. (2016). From digital amnesia to the augmented mind. Retrieved from https://media.kaspersky.com/pdf/Kaspersky-Digital-Amnesia-Evolution-report-17-08-16.pdf

  • Kiewra, K. A. (1989). A review of note-taking: The encoding-storage paradigm and beyond. Educational Psychology Review, 1(2), 147–172.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kobayashi, K. (2005). What limits the encoding effect of note-taking? A meta-analytic examination. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30(2), 242–262.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lindenberger, U., & Mayr, U. (2014). Cognitive aging: Is there a dark side to environmental support? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 7–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Masumoto, K., Nishimura, C., Tabuchi, M., & Fujita, A. (2011). What factors influence prospective memory for elderly people in a naturalistic setting. Japanese Psychological Research, 53(1), 30–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McDaniel, M. A., & Einstein, G. O. (2007). Prospective memory: An overview and synthesis of an emerging field. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mesgari, M., Okoli, C., Mehdi, M., Nielsen, F. Å., & Lanamäki, A. (2015). “The sum of all human knowledge”: A systematic review of scholarly research on the content of Wikipedia. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(2), 219–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Middleton, E. L., Schwartz, M. F., Rawson, K. A., & Garvey, K. (2015). Test-enhanced learning versus errorless learning in aphasia rehabilitation: Testing competing psychological principles. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41(4), 1253.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Moscovitch, M. (1982). A neuropsychological approach to perception and memory in normal and pathological aging. In F. I. M. Craik & S. Trehub (Eds.), Advances in the study of communication and affect: Vol. 8. Aging and cognitive processes (pp. 55–78). New York, NY: Plenum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159–1168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nestojko, J. F., Finley, J. R., & Roediger, H. L. (2013). Extending cognition to external agents. Psychological Inquiry, 24(4), 321–325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norman, D. A. (1993). Things that make us smart: Defending human attributes in the age of the machine. New York, NY: Perseus Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). Born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives. New York, NY: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, L. H., Henry, J. D., & Martin, M. (2008). Adult aging and prospective memory: The importance of ecological validity. In M. Kliegel, M. A. McDaniel, & G. O. Einstein (Eds.), Prospective memory: Cognitive, neuroscience, developmental, and applied perspectives (pp. 161–186). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). The power of testing memory: Basic research and implications for educational practice. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(3), 181–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roediger, H. L., Marsh, E. J., & Lee, S. C. (2002). Kinds of memory. In D. L. Medin & H. Pashler (Eds.), Stevens’ handbook of experimental psychology: Vol. 2. Memory and cognitive processes (3rd ed., pp. 1–41). New York, NY: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubin, D. C., & Umanath, S. (2015). Event memory: A theory of memory for laboratory, autobiographical, and fictional events. Psychological Review, 122(1), 1–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schönpflug, W. (1986). The trade-off between internal and external information storage. Journal of Memory and Language, 25(6), 657–675.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schönpflug, W. & Esser, K. B. (1995). Memory and its Graeculi: Metamemory and control in extended memory systems. In C. A. Weaver III, S. Mannes, & C. R. Fletcher (Eds.), Discourse comprehension: Essays in honor of Walter Kintsch (pp. 245–255). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schryer, E., & Ross, M. (2013). The use and benefits of external memory aids in older and younger adults. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 27(5), 663–671.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T., Arndt, J., & Routledge, C. (2008). Nostalgia: Past, present, and future. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(5), 304–307.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silva, A. R., Pinho, M. S., Macedo, L., & Moulin, C. J. A. (2016). A critical review of the effects of wearable cameras on memory. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tulving, E. (1985). How many memory systems are there? American Psychologist, 40(4), 385–398.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Worthen, J. B., & Hunt, R. R. (2011). Mnemonology: Mnemonics for the 21st century. New York, NY: Psychology Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wu, M., Birnholtz, J., Richards, B., Baecker, R., & Massimi, M. (2008). Collaborating to remember: A distributed cognition account of families coping with memory impairments. Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 08), Florence, Italy (pp. 825–834).

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, T., Kim, T., Brooks, A. W., Gino, F., & Norton, M. I. (2014). A ‘present’ for the future: The unexpected value of rediscovery. Psychological Science, 25(10), 1851–1860.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, J., & Norman, D. A. (1994). Representations in distributed cognitive tasks. Cognitive Science, 18(1), 87–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Behavioral Sciences, Fontbonne University, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Jason R. Finley

  2. Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

    Farah Naaz

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Francine W. Goh

Authors
  1. Jason R. Finley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Farah Naaz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Francine W. Goh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Finley, J.R., Naaz, F., Goh, F.W. (2018). Results: The Interplay Between Internal and External Memory. In: Memory and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99169-6_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation