Third-Person Perspectives in Photographs Influence Visual and Spatial Perspectives during Subsequent Memory Retrieval

We frequently review photographs of the past, which can influence our subsequent memories for these events. Although photographs always portray events from a particular viewpoint, there is minimal research examining the influence of viewpoint during photographic review of memories. In the current study, we examined how reviewing photographs from first-person versus third-person perspectives influenced the visual perspective (i.e., line of sight) and spatial perspective (i.e., spatial relationship of objects) in subsequent memories. Participants formed memories for mini-events performed in the lab, reviewed photographs of these events one week later from first-person and third-person perspectives, and then two days later memories for these events were tested against no photographic review. We found that third-person photographs increased the tendency to adopt an observer-like perspective during subsequent remembering, suggesting that photographic review of novel viewpoints changes the location from which the rememberer views the past event. Reviewing third-person photographs also reduced the accuracy of the spatial location of objects with respect to the original viewpoint during memory formation, indicating that photographic review can also update the spatial perspective of objects in the retrieved event. In sum, these findings show that the viewpoint of photographs can powerfully influence memories.