The Universal Decay of Collective Memory and Attention
Date
2019
Type:
Article
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Journal Title
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Volume Title
Publisher
Springer Nature
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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.
Description
Centro de Investigaci on en Complejidad Social (CICS), Facultad de Gobierno
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Citation
Nature Human Behaviour volume 3, pages82–91(2019)
Keywords
Applied physics, Complex networks, Cultural and media studies, Science, Technology, Society