Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE

Predicting the decay of collective memory

Nature Human Behaviour volume 3, pages 18–19 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Cultural products have a life of their own: academic papers get cited and songs get downloaded. Surprisingly, public attention to these products shows a consistent pattern over time: a constant decline characterized by an inflexion point. This pattern might be due to how cultural products are discussed in the community and archived as cultural memories.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Mehl, M. R. & Pennebaker, J. W. Psychol. Sci. 14, 579–585 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Candia, C., Jara-Figueroa, C., Rodriguez-Sickert, C., Barabási, A.-L. & Hidalgo, C. A. Nat. Hum. Behav. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0474-5 (2018).

  3. Hirst, W., Yamashiro, J. & Coman, A. Trends Cogn. Sci. 22, 438–451 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Olick, J. K. Sociol. Theory 17, 333–348 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Salganik, M. J., Dodds, P. S. & Watts, D. J. Science 311, 854–856 (2006).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Brady, W. J., Wills, J. A., Jost, J. T., Tucker, J. A. & Van Bavel, J. J. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 7313–7318 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Coman, A., Momennejad, I., Geana, A. & Drach, D. R. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113, 8171–8176 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Rogers, T., Milkman, K. L. & Volpp, K. G. M. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 311, 2065–2066 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Alin Coman

Authors
  1. Alin Coman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alin Coman.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Coman, A. Predicting the decay of collective memory. Nat Hum Behav 3, 18–19 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0480-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0480-7

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing