Monday, July 18, 2011

Internet affects our memory

When a person knows that you can retrieve information with one click, do not bother to remember. This is the conclusion of a series of papers published in the online edition of the journal Science. The study, conducted by three psychologists from the U.S. universities of Harvard, Columbia and Wisconsin-Madison, measured the ability to remember a group of volunteers who, in general terms, we are facing several tests that were offered minor information (for example, the eye of the oysters was greater than his brain) or color associated brands and asked to be remembered.


To measure the effect of the volunteers had to go online by typing the information received on a computer, but after each entry received a message that they were told if the data were saved or not, or if files were generic ( data entries) or other more specific. The result was clear: the amount of data remembered and its accuracy is directly related to the possibility of the computer in an easy or not.

That is, if you know that the data will be stored in one file easily identifiable (one called test data, for example), the person does not bother to learn or remember. However, if you think going to lose, you are recorded. The study has a clear role in learning processes, for example, where he is almost as important to find a fact to remember.

Because what researchers have discovered is that humans use the Internet as a kind of extension of its own memory on what they call the Google effect, and especially appreciate the ease with which volunteers-American college-to find that data, so do not bother to memorize.

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