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I also have experienced this "musical recall", but I don't think vivid memories completely replace photographs. No matter how well you can recall a memory, ther

I also have experienced this "musical recall", but I don't think vivid memories completely replace photographs. No matter how well you can recall a memory, there's still the task of communicating that memory to others. Photographs and videos greatly help with this.

wahern 7y ago
No, but photographs can destroy vivid memories, or at least commingle and taint in ways that make them impossible to distinguish from the original memory. I avoid looking at photographs of events I've personally experienced. Taking photographs is disruptive in a different way, but it's difficult to take photographs and not look at them later.
- anonytrary 7y ago
  > No, but photographs can destroy vivid memories If anything, our brains taint and alter memories over time, which causes them to be misaligned with photographs. The photograph doesn't lie. The brain lies to us and often.
  - wahern 7y ago
    Sure, memories fade and become distorted. But that's precisely the problem with photographs: they're intensely vivid. So every time you look at a photograph you're creating, transforming and reinforcing an experience you never actually had, accelerating the loss of aspects of your personal experience.[1] Photographs aren't the only way to do this: simply hearing people recounting stories can do this, but photographs are just an immensely powerful and almost instantaneous way to have such vicarious experiences. I'd rather have my own memories, however faded and worn, though there are strategies (like music association) that can help minimize that. Nonetheless, however distorted, they're principally distorted by my own emotions and desires; they're faded by my own lack of interest; they're mine, which I'd argue is the very definition of a personal memory. Many people couldn't care less. And that's fine. And if you don't know (or believe) this happens to you, then I suppose it doesn't matter, either. [1] I want to say that losing the personal visual memory might be related to losing the memory of other aspects, like the emotional experience, but that's more of a fear than anything I'm confident I've experienced personally or have read in the literature.
    - anonytrary 7y ago
      You're saying looking at a photograph is like overfitting your brain to a specific aspect of a memory. I don't see how music association is any different in this regard. Looking at a photograph of a memory represents the memory in a certain basis. Listening to a song does the same thing, just on a different basis. So this idea of overfitting or potentially losing part of the original memory is not unique to photographs. I would guess that having as many associations as possible is the healthiest for any memory. This is also the principle behind mind palaces and other memorization techniques.

wahern 7y ago

No, but photographs can destroy vivid memories, or at least commingle and taint in ways that make them impossible to distinguish from the original memory. I avoid looking at photographs of events I've personally experienced. Taking photographs is disruptive in a different way, but it's difficult to take photographs and not look at them later.

anonytrary 7y ago
> No, but photographs can destroy vivid memories If anything, our brains taint and alter memories over time, which causes them to be misaligned with photographs. The photograph doesn't lie. The brain lies to us and often.
- wahern 7y ago
  Sure, memories fade and become distorted. But that's precisely the problem with photographs: they're intensely vivid. So every time you look at a photograph you're creating, transforming and reinforcing an experience you never actually had, accelerating the loss of aspects of your personal experience.[1] Photographs aren't the only way to do this: simply hearing people recounting stories can do this, but photographs are just an immensely powerful and almost instantaneous way to have such vicarious experiences. I'd rather have my own memories, however faded and worn, though there are strategies (like music association) that can help minimize that. Nonetheless, however distorted, they're principally distorted by my own emotions and desires; they're faded by my own lack of interest; they're mine, which I'd argue is the very definition of a personal memory. Many people couldn't care less. And that's fine. And if you don't know (or believe) this happens to you, then I suppose it doesn't matter, either. [1] I want to say that losing the personal visual memory might be related to losing the memory of other aspects, like the emotional experience, but that's more of a fear than anything I'm confident I've experienced personally or have read in the literature.
  - anonytrary 7y ago
    You're saying looking at a photograph is like overfitting your brain to a specific aspect of a memory. I don't see how music association is any different in this regard. Looking at a photograph of a memory represents the memory in a certain basis. Listening to a song does the same thing, just on a different basis. So this idea of overfitting or potentially losing part of the original memory is not unique to photographs. I would guess that having as many associations as possible is the healthiest for any memory. This is also the principle behind mind palaces and other memorization techniques.