Remembrance of Things Tagged: How Tagging Affects Human Information Processing

We describe an experiment investigating how tagging affects human memory. We compare a low-cost tagging by mouse-clicking interface (Click2Tag) to traditional tagging by typing and to a baseline, no tagging condition. Our results suggest that tagging is beneficial for memory. However, the two tagging methods impact distinct aspects of memory: tagging by typing promotes elaboration of read contents and, thus, enhances free recall, whereas tagging by clicking strengthens the memory traces by repeated readings of relevant words in the text and, thus, improves recognition of facts from the text. Author