The cue is key: Design for real-life remembering

This paper aims to put the memory cue in the spotlight. We show how memory cues are incorporated in the area of interaction design. The focus is on external memory cues - cues that exist outside the human mind but have an internal effect on memory reconstruction. Examples of external cues include people, environments, and things, where the latter are most relevant for the aim of this paper since these cues can be incorporated in designs. This paper makes a dual contribution to research: (1) it provides insights into how memory research informs the design of devices to facilitate personal memory recall; and (2) by taking a design perspective, it raises questions about memory cues as part of real-life remembering to inform psychological memory research. Since memory theory inspires design and both fields would benefit from collaboration, we would like these questions to be an inspiration for future memory research, in particular targeting external memory cues. © 2014 Hogrefe Publishing

Things that make us reminisce: Everyday memory cues as opportunities for interaction design

© Copyright 2015 ACM. Interactive devices can support personal remembering to benefit well-being. These designs require insight into what brings the past to mind, and how people relate to such cues. Prior work focused on mementos in the home; instead, this paper presents a diary and interview study of involuntary memory cueing in everyday life. Data was collected from fifteen adult individuals, using sentence completion diaries, combined with debriefing interviews. Qualitative analysis of the data showed that these participants were relying on everyday physical objects like food items for cueing memories during everyday life, locations and (repeated) activities, while digital items and photos were shown to be less frequent stimulants. Meaningful relations to memory cues can be partially explained from a memory cueing perspective. We discuss how design for remembering can benefit from our insights, through careful trade-offs in timing, exposure to cues, and supporting a process of personal attachment with items invoking memories

Investigating older and younger peoples’ motivations for lifelogging with wearable cameras

People have a natural tendency to collect things about themselves, their experiences and their shared experiences with people important to them, especially family. Similar to traditional objects such as photographs, lifelogs have been shown to support reminiscence. A lifelog is a digital archive of a person’s experiences and activities and lifelog devices such as wearable cameras can automatically and continuously record events throughout a whole day. We were interested in investigating what would motivate people to lifelog. Due to the importance of shared family reminiscence between family members we focused our study on comparing shared or personal motivations with ten older and ten younger family members. We found from our results that both older and younger adults were more likely to lifelog for the purposes of information sharing and that reviewing lifelog images supported family reminiscence, reflection and story-telling. Based on these findings, recommendations are made for the design of a novel intergenerational family lifelog system

A qualitative exploration of memory cuing by personal items in the home

© The Author(s) 2017. We are surrounded by personal items that can trigger memories, such as photos, souvenirs and heirlooms. Also during holidays, we collect items to remind us of the events, but not all bring back memories to the same extent. Therefore, we explored peoples’ responses to personal items related to a holiday, using the home tour interviewing method. In total, 63 accounts of cuing responses from nine home tours were analysed using thematic analysis. This resulted in four types of cuing responses: (a) ‘no-memory’ responses, (b) ‘know’ responses, (c) ‘memory evoked think or feel’ responses and (d) ‘remember’ responses. For each of these cuing response categories, we looked into the types of items and their characteristics. Furthermore, we found that some items can evoke multiple memories. The majority of the memories’ content refers to events close to the moment of acquiring the item

Family rituals and the potential for interaction design : a study of Christmas

Drawing on a field study with eight families in northern England, we explore the traditions and rituals carried out at Christmas, looking at the artefacts and processes that constitute family life at this time of year. Besides individual differences, a common pattern emerges: an extended preparation is carried out by the hosting household over a few weeks to set up the celebration and build expectations; preparation gives way to a short but intense celebration shared with the family or intimate friends; then decorations are stored and there is a return to normal life. The celebration is across generations and everyone takes part. We note examples of new and evolving rituals. Starting from the three identified phases, we discuss the theoretical and technical implications of our findings for the design of more sympathetic technology that holds potential for augmenting family rituals sensitively and possibly creating new ones

Towards augmented human memory: Retrieval-induced forgetting and retrieval practice in an interactive, end-of-day review

We report six experiments that examined the contention that an end-of-day review could lead to augmentation in human memory. In Experiment 1, participants in the study phase were presented with a campus tour of different to-be-remembered objects in different university locations. Each to-be-remembered object was presented with an associated specific comment. Participants were then shown the location name and photographs of half of the objects from half of the locations, and they were asked to try to name the object and recall the associated comment specific to each item. Following a filled delay, participants were presented with the name of each campus location and were asked to free recall the to-be-remembered objects. Relative to the recall from the unpracticed location categories, participants recalled the names of significantly more objects that they practiced (retrieval practice) and significantly fewer unpracticed objects from the practiced locations (retrieval-induced forgetting, RIF). These findings were replicated in Experiment 2 using a campus scavenger hunt in which participants selected their own stimuli from experimenter’s categories. Following an examination of factors that maximized the effects of RIF and retrieval practice in the laboratory (Experiment 3), we applied these findings to the campus scavenger hunt task to create different retrieval practice schedules to maximize and minimize recall of items based on experimenter-selected (Experiment 4) and participant-selected items using both category-cued free recall (Experiment 5) and item-specific cues (Experiment 6). Our findings support the claim that an interactive, end-of-day review could lead to augmentation in human memory

Understanding everyday experiences of reminiscence for people living with blindness: Practices, tensions and probing new design possibilities

There is growing attention in the HCI community on how technology could be designed to support experiences of reminiscence on past life experiences. Yet, this research has largely overlooked people living with blindness. I present a study that aims to understand everyday experiences of reminiscence for people living with blindness. I conducted a qualitative study with 9 participants living with blindness to understand their personal routines, wishes and desires, and challenges and tensions regarding the experience of reminiscence. Findings are interpreted to discuss new possibilities that offer starting points for future design initiatives and openings for collaboration aimed at creating technology to better support the practices of capturing, sharing, and reflecting on significant memories of the past