Can Less be More?: Contrasting Limited, Unlimited, and Automatic Picture Capture for Augmenting Memory Recall

Today's abundance1 of cheap digital storage in the form of tiny memory cards put literally no bounds on the number of images one can capture with one's digital camera or smartphone during an event. However, prior work has shown that taking many pictures may actually make us remember less of a particular event. Does automated picture taking (lifelogging) help avoid this, yet still offer to capture meaningful pictures? In this work, we investigate the effect of capture modality (i.e., limited, unlimited, automatic, and no capture) on people's ability to recall a past event – with and without the support of the pictures captured through these modalities. Our results from a field experiment with 83 participants show that capturing fewer pictures does not necessarily lead to the capture of more relevant pictures. However, when controlling for number of pictures taken, our results show that having a limited number of pictures to capture may lead to pictures with increased memory value. At the same time, automated capture failed to produce pictures that would help remember the past experience better.