The dialogue between Ebbinghaus and Bach: studying human memory with artworks

The ubiquity of artwork across all human cultures is undeniable. This perspective article focuses on recent advancements and prospective directions in the usage of artwork as a tool for studying human memory. Firstly, we discuss unique contributions of artwork, such as paintings, sculptures, movies, and poetry, in studying human memory. Subsequently, we provide a summary of innovative experimental paradigms and computational methodologies to investigate the storage and reconstruction of artworks within the human memory system. We present a brief review of how the development of naturalistic neuroimaging and advanced statistical frameworks have furthered our understanding of memory encoding of artworks. Primarily, we propose the value of employing artworks to examine the neural mechanisms underlying memory consolidation (i.e., neural replay). We postulate that mnemonic advantages of artworks may also stem from enhanced memory consolidation during periods of wakeful rest and/or sleep. Crucially, the memory replay of artworks could transcend the reactivation of identical information to include individualized memory reconstruction and even spontaneous novel creation. To quantify the process of memory reconstruction at both behavioral and neural levels, we propose the use of drawing and memory-based creative writing as retrieval tests. Furthermore, we suggest the adoption of Deep Neural Networks (DNN) to measure the similarity of behaviors and neural responses between encoding and retrieval. In conclusion, aside from its high ecological validity, understanding the process of how humans memorize artwork could shed light on the intricate interaction between the human memory system and other unique human cognitive, affective, and social processes. This knowledge has significant real-world implications for artistic creation, journalism, and communication.