The universal decay of collective memory and attention.
Nat Hum Behav
; 3(1): 82-91, 2019 01.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-30932052
ABSTRACT
Collective memory and attention are sustained by two channels oral communication (communicative memory) and the physical recording of information (cultural memory). Here, we use data on the citation of academic articles and patents, and on the online attention received by songs, movies and biographies, to describe the temporal decay of the attention received by cultural products. We show that, once we isolate the temporal dimension of the decay, the attention received by cultural products decays following a universal biexponential function. We explain this universality by proposing a mathematical model based on communicative and cultural memory, which fits the data better than previously proposed log-normal and exponential models. Our results reveal that biographies remain in our communicative memory the longest (20-30 years) and music the shortest (about 5.6 years). These findings show that the average attention received by cultural products decays following a universal biexponential function.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Atenção
/
Comunicação
/
Cultura
/
Memória
/
Modelos Teóricos
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Nat Hum Behav
Ano de publicação:
2019
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos